His father, James Chester Reynolds, was a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman before retiring from the force and going to work as a foods wholesaler.

[14] Reynolds played small roles in a number of television series, but became discouraged and quit acting at age 19 to enroll at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

[15][16] Reynolds's career began in 1991 when he starred as Billy Simpson in the Canadian-produced teen soap opera Hillside, distributed in the United States by Nickelodeon as Fifteen.

[18] In 1996, he had a supporting role as Jay "Boom" DeBoom in "Syzygy", the thirteenth episode of the third season of The X-Files, and co-starred with Melissa Joan Hart in the TV movie Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

[19] In 1996, Reynolds played Bobby Rupp, boyfriend of murdered teen Nancy Clutter, in a two-part miniseries, In Cold Blood, an adaptation of Truman Capote's non-fiction novel of the same name.

He starred in the National Lampoon movie Van Wilder in 2002, appeared in The In-Laws with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, and also in the Canadian production Foolproof in 2003.

[20] Although he had performed primarily in comedies, Reynolds underwent intense physical training to play an action role as the character of Hannibal King in the 2004 film Blade: Trinity.

[22] Also in 2005, he played a waiter named Monty in Waiting... and appeared as music executive Chris Brander in the romantic comedy Just Friends alongside Amy Smart and Anna Faris.

After portraying Wade Wilson / Weapon XI, in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he became heavily involved in the development of a Deadpool film.

Reynolds chose not to get paid from his performance as Deadpool so the film could be released, and spent the "little salary" he had so that co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick would be on set alongside him.

[39][40] Reynolds co-starred with Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson in the science fiction thriller Life in 2017, which reunited him with Safe House director Daniel Espinosa.

The first, Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, is an action comedy film directed by Patrick Hughes and written by Tom O'Connor and Brandon and Phillip Murphy.

Also featuring Jodie Comer, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Joe Keery and Taika Waititi, the film was theatrically released in the United States on August 13 by 20th Century Studios.

[54][55] In his last film of the year, Reynolds starred alongside Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot in Netflix's thriller Red Notice, written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber.

[58][59] In August 2024, Reynolds and his wife Blake Lively became the first married Hollywood couple to have two separate films they starred in lead the box office on the same weekend since Bruce Willis and Demi Moore in 1990, as their respective films Deadpool and Wolverine and It Ends with Us would occupy the number one and number two spots at the box office during the August 9–11 weekend.

Maximum Effort is in development on a live-action adaptation of the board game Clue, to be penned by Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

[82] On May 3, 2021, Ryan Reynolds was part of an investor group led by Greylock Partners that made a $750 million investment into Wealthsimple.

Reynolds's exact ownership amount was not disclosed, but this investment round valued the Canadian financial startup company at CA$5 billion.

[83] In January 2022, Ryan Reynolds was part of a group of investors who participated in a Series C funding round that made a $620 million investment into 1Password.

Reynolds's exact ownership amount was not disclosed, but this investment round valued the Canadian cybersecurity startup company at $6.8 Billion.

[85] In November 2022, reports began circulating that Reynolds was interested in purchasing ownership of the Ottawa Senators, which were to be sold by the estate of the late Eugene Melnyk.

Reynolds confirmed that he was looking to acquire a stake in the team in a November 7 appearance on The Tonight Show, telling host Jimmy Fallon that he would "need a partner with really deep pockets" to accomplish this.

[92] On June 26, 2023, it was announced that both Reynolds and McElhenney were part of an investor group that bought a 24% equity stake in the Formula One Alpine F1 Team.

[93] In October 2008, Reynolds wrote for The Huffington Post regarding his plan to run the 2008 New York City Marathon for his father who, at the time, suffered from Parkinson's disease.

[98] On the May 13, 2018, broadcast of the South Korean reality television show King of Mask Singer, Reynolds had a special performance in the opening act, singing "Tomorrow".

For his role as Deadpool in the 2016 Marvel film of the same name, he received the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor in a Comedy and a Golden Globe nomination in the same category.

The Build-A-Bear, which contained a recording of the woman's late mother saying "I love you" in Filipino, was returned in four days by two good Samaritans.

[113] He alongside his wife, Blake Lively voluntarily contributed a relief fund of $1 million to assist the States as a result of the Hurricanes Helene and Milton that happened in October 2024 at Florida and some other parts of the U.S.

[127] After civil rights protests in 2020, Reynolds publicly apologized and expressed deep regret for using that venue due to its association with slavery.

[133] Reynolds and Lively are close friends with singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, who named the characters in her song "Betty" after their daughters.