In 1904, Ryan was commissioned in the
Royal Artillery. At the outset of the
First World War, he was stationed on the
Western Front. At the end of the war (1918) he was a
lieutenant colonel, and was awarded three foreign honours and the
Distinguished Service Order in 1918, having been wounded in 1915 in the
Battle of Festubert. Ryan was the chief of staff to the governor of
Cologne in 1919, and was shifted to the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission headquarters in 1920. He married Lady Rosemary Constance Hay, the daughter of the high commissioner the
Earl of Erroll, at the British consulate on 29 May 1924. They had one child, Patrick Vincent Charles Ryan, and divorced in 1935, whereafter he returned to
Victoria to Edrington, the property he had inherited near
Berwick. He and his sister built the station into a very successful
Romney Marsh stud; he also built a landing strip there in 1939. Ryan was appointed a
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1928, and acted as high commissioner following Erroll's death until the end of the occupation. At his retirement from the army in 1929, he became an arms salesman with Vickers Ltd, in which capacity he travelled to
Moscow and
Bangkok. He resigned in 1934. At the outbreak of the
Second World War, Ryan joined the
Australian Military Forces, holding administrative posts until 1940, when he was elected to the
Australian House of Representatives for
Flinders as a member of the
United Australia Party. ==Federal politics==