Ryan graduated with a B.S. from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he worked in ichthyology, benthic ecology, and fish culturing labs and as a fisheries observer aboard gillnet boats. His master’s and subsequent research at Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, primarily used video and sonar arrays to map seafloor habitats and conduct fisheries independent surveys of anthropogenic and natural habitats of continental shelf waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This included surveys of fishes and invertebrates associated with energy platforms, evaluation of the increased productivity and depleted bottom dissolved oxygen related to river discharge and eutrophication, the ecological importance of large sand shoals, the effects of oil exposure to early life stages of sensitive fishes, and evaluation of habitat enhancement by ecosystem engineering fishes. Ryan is dedicated to applied science that can assist management decisions within changing coastal systems.