Joan Marie Ryan (born 8 September 1955) is a British former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Enfield North from 1997 to 2010 and from 2015 to 2019.

She lost her seat in the 2010 general election after an expenses scandal and was deputy campaign director of NOtoAV in the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum.

[1][2] Ryan was elected as a councillor for the East Finchley ward[3] on Barnet London Borough Council, representing the Labour Party, in 1990.

[5] In her first years as an MP, she was known as an advocate for Greek Cypriots in her constituency and in the Commons, and also as an opponent of Ken Livingstone during the creation of the Greater London Authority (GLA).

[5] She sat on the board of the London Labour Party and defended a vetting panel for mayoral candidates that was accused of bias.

[10] In July, a report authored by Ryan was leaked to The Mail on Sunday; it said that a surge in immigration from eastern Europe in 2007 could put pressure on Britain's education, health, and welfare services, and could also lead to "potentially serious" consequences for community cohesion.

[17] In September 2008, she was revealed by Siobhain McDonagh to have requested leadership nomination papers ahead of the party's annual conference.

[21] In October 2007, the Evening Standard reported that Ryan had claimed £173,691 in expenses in the 2006/2007 tax year, the highest of any MP in London.

[22] In May 2007, Ryan had voted in favour of David Maclean's Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, which would have kept details of parliamentary expenses secret.

[23] In response to the report, Ryan said that she had not made any claims for refurbishment on her south London flat and therefore had not "flipped" the properties to maximise the benefit of the allowances.

[25][26] The Independent reported in March 2012 that "at least 10 attempts" were made from computers on the Parliamentary estate to remove information about Ryan's expenses from her Wikipedia article.

"[26] The Daily Telegraph reported that the entire section about expenses on Ryan's page was deleted by computers inside Parliament in run-up to the 2015 general election.

[30] After losing her seat, she was appointed Chief Executive of the Global Tamil Forum, and later became deputy director of the successful NOtoAV campaign.

[31] In March 2013, Ryan announced she was to seek re-selection by Labour to contest the Enfield North constituency at the 2015 general election.

[32] After her reselection, several constituents wrote to her local paper, the Enfield Advertiser, suggesting that voters had not yet forgotten the revelations about her expenses in 2009.

Ryan, arguing in line with most opinion polls, said she expected May's government to return with a much larger number of MPs, but that she was well placed to combat such a Conservative majority.

[38][48][49] Ryan said the motion had passed because of "Trots, Stalinists and communists", who she said had entered the Enfield North Labour Party, and said "Just to be clear I will not be resigning.

[56] In 2021, Ryan was appointed chief executive of ELNET-UK, the British section of ELNET, a NGO working to strengthen relations between Europe and Israel.