Ryan spends a lot of time getting to know his subjects and very little time post-processing. He went AWOL from the US Army as a teenager and went on to get a degree in Peace Studies. Ryan has held solo exhibitions at the Nikon Salons in Tokyo and Osaka, The Fuji Film Salon, The foreign correspondents Club of Thailand, The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan and more.

In addition to his own work and exhibitions, Ryan founded and directs Documentary Arts Asia, Sakse Agency, Everyday Kachin, the Naw Ming Award and many other projects. Ryan has called Asia home for nearly 2 decades and he works primarily on self-assigned projects