At the end of the war (1918) he was a lieutenant colonel, and was awarded three foreign honours and the Distinguished Service Order in 1918, having been wounded in 1915 in the Battle of Festubert.

He married Lady Rosemary Constance Hay, the daughter of the high commissioner the Earl of Erroll, at the British consulate on 29 May 1924.

They had one child, Patrick Vincent Charles Ryan, and divorced in 1935, whereafter he returned to Victoria to Edrington, the property he had inherited near Berwick.

Ryan was not particularly prominent in Parliament, serving on joint committees on social security (1941–46) and foreign affairs (1952), the latter of which he was the chairman.

Ryan remained in Parliament until his sudden death of cardiac failure on 25 August 1952; he was cremated, and survived by his son.