Ryan was born in Culcheth near Warrington, Cheshire to parents who owned a Bingo hall. He and his younger brother attended Culcheth High School. Despite playing in a school band called Darker Than Shark he was enthused by a RADA-educated drama teacher. He attended the Lancashire Schools Arts Workshop in North Wales, before being accepted into LAMDA.
Career
On graduation, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company on an 18-month contract. 10 years later, he played the part of Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at RSC in 1999/2000. He has also starred in both Fallout and Posh at the Royal Court Theatre, and was in Mammals at the BushTheatre and later on tour. In 2008 he appeared in Gethsemane, a new play by David Hare at the National Theatre. He appeared on the Teen DramaSkins as the father of the third generation character Rich Hardbeck in 2011 and 2012. He took over the role of Harry in the special reunion episodes of BBC sitcom As Time Goes By alongside Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer. Ryan also appeared in the 2008 Doctor Who episode "Midnight". In 2014, he appeared in Salting the Battlefield as Bill Catcheside. He is also known for playing the role of Dan in the Sky Living comedy-drama, Mount Pleasant since 2011. In 2015 he appeared as Colonel Anthony Forbes-Leith in the BBC TV seriesFather Brown episode 3.9 "The Truth in the Wine". He has played Welsh butcher Bryn Brindsley in the ITV war-time drama Home Fires from 2015. In 2017, Ryan appeared in the first episode of the CBBCanthology seriesCreeped Out as Jessie's dad Del in the episode Slapstick. In 2018 he starred in the ITV mini-series Innocent, as the lead character's brother, Phil Collins. In February 2019 he played Gerald Baynes in Death in Paradise S8.E8. Also in February he appeared as Alec Sidden in The Seagull, S9:E4 of Vera, and in April 2019 as Detective Inspector Anthony ‘Tony’ Manning in The Bay. He also appeared as a man who was severely brain-damaged after drink and driving, in part of the COI's Drinking And Driving Wrecks Lives campaign. As a writer, his work has been performed by the RSC and at the Edinburgh Festival.
