[1] He captained the Rugby Cricket XI in August 1914 and opened the batting for Lord's Schools against the Rest with George Whitehead who went on the play two matches for Kent later the same month.
[1] At the start of World War I Bryan volunteered for service with the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC), joining as a Private on 26 August 1914.
He served with the HAC in Northern France in 1914 and was wounded by shellfire in November 1914 towards the end of the First Battle of Ypres and evacuated to England.
[6] After training on a machine gun course, he served at Gallipoli from September 1915 as Machine-Gun Officer of the 5th Manchester's until he was evacuated in October 1915 suffering from jaundice.
The Manchester's moved to Egypt after their withdrawal from Gallipoli and Bryan served in the 127th Brigade Machine Gun Company at Abu Mena and the Suez Canal.
[5] In 1917 Bryan left Egypt for the Western Front, serving in the Somme area where he suffered from pyrexia and was hospitalised for a time.
He served as an Adjutant with the Manchester Regiment in France during 1940 and was evacuated from Dunkirk alongside his brother Ronnie, being Mentioned in Dispatches during the action.
He played for Kent's Second XI in 1914 as well as for the Club and Ground side before enlisting in the army at the start of World War I.
He was, according to Wisden, "so highly ... regarded" that he was selected three times for the Gentlemen v Players fixture before he had played a match during the season.
His Wisden obituary calls him a "a model opening bat" who aimed to "lay a good foundation to the innings" before attacking[3] It regarded him as a "potentially great" cricketer who was a "beautiful field(er)" and "bowled slow leg-breaks and googlies"[3] He scored over 8,700 runs in first-class cricket including 17 centuries.
His highest score was 236 runs made against Hampshire in 1923 at Canterbury, an innings Wisden singled out as an example of his approach to batting.