In 2002, Ryall was hired by filmmaker
Kevin Smith to run the entertainment-based MoviePoopShoot.com, one of Smith’s first forays outside of filmmaking. The site originally appeared in Smith's 2001 film,
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, as a parody site. Ryall, along with webmaster
Ming Chen, news writer/editor Scott Tipton and many freelance columnists and cartoonists, launched the site on June 17, 2002. In addition to serving as the site's Editor-in-Chief, Ryall wrote multiple weekly columns for the website, including "One Hand Clapping", "TV Recommendations", "A Night Out", and "TV Pilot Reviews". Ryall continued to run the site after joining IDW in mid-2004. He departed the site altogether in January 2006. On June 21, 2004, Ryall joined
San Diego–based comic-book publisher IDW Publishing as the company's second Editor-in-Chief. Ryall's first published comic-book work as writer with IDW was an adaptation of the film
Shaun of the Dead with artist
Zach Howard; he also helped launch the horror mag revival
Doomed (for which he and artist Ashley Wood received an Eisner nomination for their adaptation of Richard Matheson's
"Blood Son" short story), dialoguing the lead character, Ms. Doomed, and writing numerous stories for the magazine's four issues; also, he adapted George A. Romero's
Land of the Dead with artist
Gabriel Rodriguez;
Masters of Horror with artist
Jeremy Haun; he co-wrote with
Simon Furman the first
Transformers film prequel, with artist Don Figueroa; Ryall and Rodriguez again adapted
Beowulf;
Gene Simmons House of Horrors; a prose short in
30 Days of Night, a DVD pack-in comic for the movie
Role Models; and
Weekly World News with artist Alan Robinson. He adapted the epic
Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show with Rodriguez illustrating all 12 issues. Ryall wrote four of the eight issues of IDW's
Kiss comic series, with artists
Jamal Igle and
Wagner Reis, as well as two issues of Kiss Solo, and co-wrote with
Tom Waltz four issues of Kiss Kids with artist
Jose Holder. Ryall more recently adapted the
Stephen King/
Joe Hill tribute to Richard Matheson, "
Throttle" with artist
Nelson Daniel and Matheson's own "
Duel" in a book called
Road Rage. Ryall spearheaded an inter-company crossover involving
Mars Attacks and numerous IDW properties, and wrote two of the issues:
Mars Attacks Kiss and
Mars Attacks Zombies vs Robots. In 2014, Ryall and Sam Kieth again partnered to launch a four-issue miniseries
Mars Attacks: First Born. Comics series he has created include
Zombies vs. Robots (and its sequel
Zombies vs. Robots vs. Amazons) both co-created with artist
Ashley Wood;
Groom Lake (co-created with artist
Ben Templesmith);
The Colonized with artist
Drew Moss; and
The Hollows with artist
Sam Kieth. In February 2006, IDW promoted Ryall to Publisher. Among the properties he helped develop and shepherd to IDW Publishing were Hasbro's
Transformers,
Locke & Key,
Toho’s Godzilla, CBS/Paramount's
Star Trek, HBO's
True Blood and
2000 AD's
Judge Dredd. During Ryall's tenure at IDW, the publisher was made a premiere publisher, won their first
Eisner Awards, published the first-ever inter-license crossover and the first-ever
Doctor Who crossover. In 2009, Ryall and co-writer Scott Tipton released the prose primer on the comic book industry,
Comic Books 101, through IMPACT Publishing. In addition to featuring Ryall and Tipton's overview of comics history and creators, the book features contributions from creators such as Stan Lee,
Harlan Ellison,
Gene Simmons,
Mark Waid,
Joe Hill and
Brian Lynch. Independent of IDW Publishing, Ryall published
Frank Frazetta’s Neanderthal with Jay Fotos and
Tim Vigil, through
Image Comics. He also published a short comic-book story with artist Drew Moss, "High Ball on the Low Road," in the Image Comics anthology "Outlaw Western, Vol. 3" (2013). "Outlaw Western" was nominated for a 2014
Eisner Award for
Best Anthology. In October 2010, Ryall contributed a prose story, "Twilight of the Gods", to
Classics Mutilated, a prose "monster-lit" anthology, and in 2014, published his first Zombies vs Robots prose story, "Meaner Than a Junkyard Dog", in the anthology
Zombies vs Robots: This Means War. Ryall wrote the first inter-company crossover for IDW in 2011:
Infestation, which paired the Transformers,
Star Trek,
Ghostbusters, and
G.I. Joe in an adventure with Ryall's own
Zombies vs Robots. He also directly oversaw 2012's
Mars Attacks IDW franchise, and wrote two of the issues,
Mars Attacks Kiss, and
Mars Attacks Zombies vs Robots. His 2013 to 2014 work includes
The Colonized, co-created with artist Drew Moss,
The Hollows, co-created with artist
Sam Kieth, and
Kiss Kids, with co-author
Tom Waltz and artist
Jose Holder. All three series were published in 2013. In July 2014, Ryall won the Best Editor award at the True Believers Awards (formerly the Eagle Awards) at the London Film & Comic Con. Ryall wrote four series in 2015:
Zombies vs Robots, ''
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency with artists Tony Akins and Ilias Kyriazis, Onyx, co-created with artist Gabriel Rodriguez, and String Divers'' with artist Nelson Daniel. That year Ryall was once again named to Bleeding Cool's Top 100 Power List, moving up the rankings to No. 40. In 2016, Ryall co-wrote
Rom the Space Knight. After Ryall leaving IDW in March 2018 to work at Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment, in December 2018, Ryall returned to IDW to serve as President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer. In 2020, Ryall announced that he was stepping down from his duties with IDW in order to work with Ashley Wood again in a new publishing venture called the World of Syzygy, though he would continue as editor of the
Locke & Key comic books, and executive producer of the
television series. ==Personal life==