Ryan earned his PhD in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he worked in the Peters Lab using CRISPR technology to study antibiotic resistance and biofuels production in bacteria. His previous research includes characterizing dryland cyanobacterial genomes at New Mexico State University's Pietrasiak Lab.

He has also served as a natural resource policy analyst for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture and as an independent contractor for the US Food and Drug Administration.

He holds bachelor's degrees in Economics, Foreign Languages, and Genetics/Biotechnology from New Mexico State University, where he also completed a master's in Economics before joining the Genetics program at Wisconsin-Madison.