While at NYU, he co-founded the New York theatre company Argo with Circle in the Square actors, working as playwright and director.

He wrote and produced for PBS's Frontline and Wide Angle as well as several civil rights documentaries, notably the Emmy Award-winning series 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.

He has also worked with friend and collaborator Ezra Edelman on numerous sports-themed documentaries for HBO including the Ghosts of Flatbush (2008), about the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York in the 1950s which won an Emmy; Magic & Bird: a Courtship of Rivals (2009) about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and race politics in the 1980s which was nominated for an Emmy and won a Peabody Award.

The piece stars actors Damon Herriman, James Scott, Xander Berkeley, Lance Guest, Cameron Daddo and Nate Jones.

The feature film centered around the 2008 American Men's Olympic basketball team which comprised LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade.

A long time Republican, Ryan broke with his party and helped to renew the national debate on capital punishment when, as governor, he declared a moratorium on his state's death penalty in 2000.

An investigation into Civil Rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner who were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi during 1964's Freedom Summer.

Won Emmy in 2023 for Best Long Form Documentary for the film The Redeem Team along with producers Jon Weinbach, Frank Marshall, Mike Tollin and Dwyane Wade.