[2] He worked for General Electric in Lynn, Massachusetts, and was rapidly promoted and put in charge of the Commercial Department, which developed into the Illuminating Engineering Laboratory, the world's first institution for research into lighting;[3] this was formally established around 1908 in Schenectady, New York, with him at its head.

[18] It was on display at the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, with shows twice nightly at Riverside Drive and 155th Street.Forty huge searchlights of varying color shot enormous beams high in the air, now radiating in fan-like effect and changing from intensest white to the softer greens and yellows; now again shifting bodily from east to west and back again with frightful speed.

[2][20][21][22] The New York Tribune reported: "Presently the whole great stretch of the Falls was a mass of color; the whirling water beneath was like a pool of flame in the glow of the red searchlights.

[26] Previous expositions had used outline lighting with strings of incandescent bulbs and, more recently, arc lamps; Ryan restricted these to the "Joy Zone" (the midway) and also used screens, filters, and reflecting to manipulate the floodlights.

[26] The centerpiece of the fair was the Tower of Jewels, 435 feet tall and covered with 102,000 suspended, mirror-backed Austrian cut-glass prisms, some colored and some clear, which refracted sunlight by day and reflected 54 searchlight beams by night.

[24][27] Two buildings were lit from within at night, one of them an "Electric Kaleidoscope" created by a circle of 12 moving floodlight beams aimed upwards at the glass dome of the Palace of Horticulture.

[24] Ryan carefully concealed both exterior floodlights and the red incandescent bulbs used to pick out architectural details, in order to avoid shadows and eye fatigue.

[28] The ambient lighting was intended to be beautiful and intimate, while three times a week, Scintillators created awe-inspiring overhead effects on themes such as "Scotch Plaid, Ghost Dance, and Fighting Serpents".

[29][30] In an article on the exposition for General Electric Review, Ryan himself wrote of the atmosphere he intended to create:Soft radiant energy is everywhere; lights and shadows abound, fire spits from the mouths of serpents into the flaming gas cauldrons and sends its flickering rays over the composite Spanish-Gothic-Oriental grandeur.

[31] The floodlighting was cheaper to install, maintain, and power than the festoons of electric bulbs, and allowed both artistic effects with shimmering light, accents, and contrasts with dark surroundings, and realism, including the highlighting of architectural details.