He has held senior executive roles across the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the National Indigenous Australians Agency, and the Department of Social Services. In these roles, he led major national reforms across employment services, disability, housing and economic development, including the design of Disability Employment Services, remote employment and housing reforms, and co-designed once in a generation amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act with Traditional Owners.

Ryan has worked across all levels of the system — advising Ministers and Cabinet, negotiating intergovernmental agreements, and designing and overseeing large-scale national programs — while also working directly with communities, particularly in remote Northern Territory. He has worked alongside Traditional Owners, Land Councils and local organisations to co-design housing, employment and economic initiatives that reflect community priorities.

His work is shaped by both professional and lived experience, including growing up in regional Australia and seeing how disadvantage impacts families and how systems can both support and constrain people and their communities. This perspective underpins his focus on designing systems that restore dignity, shift power, and enable communities to shape their own futures.

At Between Points, Ryan focuses on connecting local ambition with government systems, aligning policy, funding and institutional settings so that community-led solutions can take hold and scale. He also leads the development of the organisation in line with its values — building an organisation that is rigorous in its thinking, grounded in practical delivery, and proudly a charity focused on tackling disadvantage and directing its work to where it is needed most.