General John Dale Ryan (December 10, 1915 – October 27, 1983) was the seventh Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force.

He was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which, as a body, acts as the principal military advisers to the president, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense.

In September, he was assigned to the Air Training Command at Fort Worth and Randolph Field, where he remained until April 1946, when he assumed duties with the 58th Bombardment Wing and participated in the Bikini Atoll atomic weapons tests.

From September 1946 to July 1948, he was assistant chief of staff for pilots of the 58th Bombardment Wing and then Eighth Air Force director of operations.

Ryan's tenure as commander of PACAF and later as Air Force Chief of Staff also engendered controversy when he was described as one of a group that helped destroy General Jack Lavelle's career after Lavelle gave fighter pilots permission to shoot back at bona fide threats, something previously denied them by rules of engagement.

Ryan's "undue command influence" later resulted in the overturning and expungement of Broughton's conviction by the USAF Board for the Correction of Military Records.

[7] According to Mark Perry 1989 military history book Four Stars: The Inside Story of The Forty-Year Battle Between The Joint Chiefs of Staff and America's Civilian Leaders, Ryan was considered one of the Air Force's major air power strategists in the end of 1960s and was one of the able successors to Curtis LeMay and Thomas D. White.

Ryan was also quoted as one of the military's leading critics of the can-do spirit which permeated the New Frontier-Great Society national Leadership.

Ryan died of a heart attack at age 67 on October 27, 1983, while hospitalized at the Air Force's Wilford Hall Medical Center adjacent to Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas.

Another son, Captain John D. Ryan, Jr., was killed in 1970 when his F-4 Phantom II crashed into San Pablo Bay during a training mission, shortly after takeoff from Hamilton AFB in Marin County, California.

[9][10] In December 1962, he joined a select group of athletes, who have been successful in their professional careers since their college football days, when he was chosen a member of the Sports Illustrated Silver Anniversary All-American team.