He was educated for the army, and in 1781 was assistant deputy-paymaster-general to the forces under Burgoyne and Cornwallis in America, serving at New York before to its final evacuation in 1782.
In 1793 Lord Dorchester, as Carleton had become, was appointed governor-in-chief of British North America, and took Ryland with him to Canada as his civil secretary.
[1] Ryland aimed to establish in Canada the supremacy of the Crown and the Church of England, and to anglicise the French Canadians.
He opposed Archbishop Joseph Octave Plessis; and advised the closure of the reactionary press in March 1810.
Soon afterwards he was sent to England on a special mission, to obtain an alteration of the constitution of Lower Canada, to appropriate to the Crown the revenues of the Jesuits' estates, and to induce the government to take over patronage of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec.