His uncle was Patrick Finbar Ryan OP, Archbishop of Port of Spain, Trinidad.
He was one of the friars who was on the Peace Pilgrimage to Vézelay in Burgundy, selecting "30 strong men" to carry a heavy wooden cross across France in thanksgiving for the end of the Second World War.
The Catholic philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach were among the first invited, remaining leading figures of the group for the 20 years.
Ryan's contribution to philosophy and theology was more through his influence on the people he taught, although a short piece 'The Traditional Concept of Natural Law: an Interpretation' (which he claimed to have written on the train before he gave it as a lecture) has been influential.
[3] His students included Herbert McCabe and Timothy McDermott, both translators of the Blackfriars Summa, and Fergus Kerr.