[2] Cryer attracted media attention, and death threats,[8] for speaking out against forced marriages, honour killings, calling on immigrants to learn to speak English before entering the country,[9] and for being amongst the first people to talk about the issue of gangs of Asian men sexually abusing children in Yorkshire.
[10] On 21 August 2008, Cryer announced she would not contest the next general election, due to her health, energy levels and age.
She became a researcher in social history at the University of Essex in 1969 before becoming a full-time personal assistant to her husband when he entered parliament in 1974 until his death in a car accident on 12 April 1994.
[3] Ann Cryer is president of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway Society, having been a member with her first husband from its early days.
[3] In December 2009, Ann Cryer was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bradford for services to the community from 1991, before and after becoming Keighley's MP.