[citation needed] Ryan helped organize a United Steelworkers of America (USWA) local where he worked after arriving in Canada.

[citation needed] Ryan appeared weekly for 10 years on Michael Coren Live and CHEX-TV Durham, CFRB 1010 and writes a bi-weekly column for the Toronto Sun.

[citation needed] Ryan marched alongside members of the United Farm Workers in California, went to Texas with Ruben "Hurricane" Carter to lobby Texas politicians for a commutation of Stanley Faulder's death sentence, was instrumental in having CUPE Ontario support the BDS campaign in order to pressure the State of Israel.

Following his retirement in 2015, Ryan wrote a book 'A Grander Vision'about growing up in Dublin, Ireland and his life in the Canadian labour movement.

[citation needed] Ryan's affiliation with the Ontario NDP became tenuous in the early 1990s, when some felt that the party had moved to the right under Bob Rae's leadership.

He contested Scarborough Centre in the 1999 provincial election, and finished third behind Progressive Conservative incumbent Marilyn Mushinski and Liberal Costas Manios.

[citation needed] Ryan also stood as a candidate for Oshawa in the 2004 federal election, and lost to Conservative Colin Carrie by 463 votes in a three-way race.

The flyer showed Ryan and several others having a beer with Alex Maskey the former Lord Mayor of Belfast who was reportedly twice interned for being a member of the IRA.

[citation needed] Ryan considered running for the leadership of the federal NDP in 2017 but declined due to his not being able to speak French, and instead endorsed Niki Ashton.

[11] In 2006, Ryan threatened a political strike after Premier Dalton McGuinty brought in Bill 206, which would change the administration of OMERS but would not fully address CUPE's concerns.

[14] The tour saw great turnouts at stops in Windsor, London, Guelph, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Ottawa, Kingston, Midland, Waterloo, Owen Sound, Brockville, Cobourg, Whitby, Toronto, and Peterborough.

He has written columns and pieces on the violence in his homeland, including an article in the Toronto Sun titled "The Orange, the Green ... and 'the troubles'".

[18] During the 2004 federal election campaign, in which he ran as an NDP candidate, a Conservative Party member produced a leaflet featured a picture of Ryan standing beside Alec Maskey, former Lord Mayor of Belfast.

Ryan was awarded the Canadian Arab Federation's Social Justice Award in 2007 for his work as an International Peace Observer in Northern Ireland and his championing of Palestinian rights, specifically his strong support for CUPE Ontario's Resolution 50 which called for union members to support the international campaign of boycott, diverstment and sanctions against Israel.