The Ryle Telescope was an eight-element interferometer operating at 15 GHz (2cm wavelength).

For high-resolution imaging, the mobile aerials were arranged along the track, to give uniform baseline coverage to 4.8 km; for low-brightness astronomy (e.g. the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect) the mobile aerials were arranged in a 'compact array', with a maximum baseline of about 100 m. All antenna pairs were correlated, so some long baseline data were always available, even in the 'compact array' configuration.

Another consequence of the geometry was that it is not practical to image sources near the equator, or in the south.

The two-dimensional Large Array overcomes this problem with its new north-south baselines.

The telescope had three main scientific programs: study of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in galaxy clusters, particularly in determining the Hubble constant; surveying for radio sources that would contaminate degree-scale observations of the cosmic microwave background made with the Very Small Array, and flux monitoring of galactic variable sources.