[3] Tryggvason worked as a meteorologist with the cloud physics group at the Atmospheric Environment Service in Toronto in 1972 and 1973.

In 1974, he joined the University of Western Ontario to work as a research associate at the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory working on projects involving rigid and aero-elastic model studies of wind effects on structures.

[3] In 1982, Tryggvason joined the Low Speed Aerodynamics Laboratory at the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa.

He became part of the NRC team assembled to study the sinking of the Ocean Ranger oil rig in support of the Royal Commission investigation.

He was active in aerobatic flight and once qualified as captain in the Tutor jet trainer with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

[2] He was back-up Payload Specialist to Steven MacLean for the CANEX-2 set of experiments which flew on Mission STS-52, October 22 to November 1, 1992.

[3] He was the principal investigator in the development of the Large Motion Isolation Mount, which has flown numerous times on the NASA Boeing KC-135 and DC-9 aircraft, for the Microgravity vibration Isolation Mount (MIM), which operated on the Russian Mir space station from April 1996 until January 1998, and for the MIM-2, which flew on STS-85 in August 1997.

During the flight, his primary role was testing MIM-2 and performing fluid dynamics experiments designed to examine sensitivity to spacecraft vibrations.

The class was the first group of astronauts to be trained as both mission specialist for the Space Shuttle and as potential crewmembers for the ISS.

[6] On February 22, 2009, Tryggvason piloted a replica of Alexander Graham Bell's Silver Dart, from the ice on Baddeck Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.