Ryan is the Senior Counsel for Grubhub in Chicago. Prior to that was a litigation associate at the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP. After graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked in Pittsburgh for Third Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman and then worked at Davi Polk & Wardell in New York City..

Ryan is a 2009 Mitchell Scholar. He received a Masters Degree in Political and Public Communications from Dublin City University, graduating with First Class Honours. Ryan's thesis research examined the role of online campaigning in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland. He also wrote a paper on what De Valera learned about political communication during his 1919 visit to the United States, the research for which involved examining the collection of De Valera's personal hand written papers held at University College Dublin.

While an undergraduate at Duke University, Ryan won national acclaim as the Editor-in-Chief of the Duke Chronicle during the Duke lacrosse case. At Yale Law School, he served as Managing Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After his clerkship ended, he worked at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in New York City.

Ryan obtained his undergraduate degree from Duke University.