Bryan had come to serve a Bloomington congregation on a supply basis in January 1855, then received a call to the pastorate there and was installed in September 1855.

[6] Bryan was Superintendent of Public Schools in Grayville, Illinois, for three years before becoming professor of Latin and Greek at Vincennes in 1882,[3] and taking the presidency in 1883.

Bryan later invited him to join the faculty at his next institution, known in its early years as the Washington Agricultural College and School of Science.

By 1894, he had built up a faculty of fourteen in fields at diverse as English, botany, chemistry, physics, zoology, agriculture, horticulture, and civil and mechanical engineering.

In 1905, he gained legislative approval to change the name to Washington State College to match its breadth of studies.

Assessing Bryan's influence, WSU history professor George A. Frykman wrote in a WSU centennial history volume: "When Bryan presided over his final Commencement in June 1915, the impressive numbers of teachers and graduates strongly suggest that the State College of Washington had a bright future.

Bryan was the author of three books: The Mark in Europe and America (1893), The History of the State College of Washington (1928), and Orient Meets Occident or The Advent of the Railways into the Pacific Northwest (1936).