Ryan was born in 1984 in Margate and educated at Chatham House Grammar School Ramsgate. He graduated from BA Multi-media Textile Design at Loughborough University in June 2006; and MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins College in June 2008.
Ryan's work investigates society’s relationship with material culture; the social practice of lifestyle; and the role that contemporary design practice plays in shaping these phenomena. Current work comments on the meaning and function of design artefacts in our post-industrial society; particularly the conflict between the image of lifestyle promoted by sections of the by the mainstream Western media and the opposing reality of detachment, unhappy consciousness and depleting natural resources that result from society’s relationship with material culture. His intention is to raise questions about the nature of material culture, specifically what it means to be modern in a post-industrial society
