[2] Ryan won the 1934 - Albury & District Football League's best and fairest award, the Stavley Medal, playing for the Albury Rovers Football Club, before heading down to Melbourne to play with Fitzroy.

In 1939 after injuring his knee, Ryan joined the army and fought in World War II, serving for four years.

[5] He was wounded as one of the "Rats of Tobruk" and later served 18 months on the front line in New Guinea.

[6] Ryan did appear in a practice match for Fitzroy in March, 1946,[7] but he never played VFL football after the end of World War Two.

This Australian rules football biography of a person born in 1916 is a stub.