Ryder worked at the NASA Johnson Space Center in the Lunar Curatorial Facility for Northrup Services Inc. From 1978 to 1982 he helped in the assembly of catalogues and guides to the Apollo lunar samples.
Since 1983 he was a staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.
He was an advocate of the "3.8 Ga Cataclysmic Bombardment" theory concerning a period of sudden mass impacts of the Moon and inner planets.
[citation needed] Ryder was posthumously awarded the Barringer Medal at the 2003 Meteoritical Society meeting for his work in planetary science.
[citation needed] The Ryder crater on the Moon has been named in his honour.