Ryan began her career as a personnel administrator at Polaroid Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[1] She next worked as projects coordinator for the nonprofit Center for Natural Areas, an environmental resource management company.
[2] That year, she assumed the role of statewide coordinator for the Maine Coalition for the Equal Rights Amendment.
[2] In 1975 Ryan was appointed chair of the Governor's Advisory Council on the Status of Women, a post she held until 1979.
[2] In June 1979 she became executive director of the Maine Human Rights Commission, a state agency established in 1971 to investigate complaints of discrimination.