He began acting in commercial when he was very young, and he also did print work, acted in the local theater “Stage Struck Studios”, and performed as a vocal actor.

His first important role was on the TV series “The Mommies”, that has been recorded from 1993 to 1995. In 1995, Ryan appeared in one episode of the TV series “The Client”, and in the next year he entered in the cast of the successful TV series “The Pretender”. He had a main role, and he’s been in the cast of the series till the year 2000, for a total of 50 episodes and two nominations for awards. He participated in some TV films (“What's Right With America” in 1997, and “Everything That Rises” in 1998, thanks to which he won the award as “Best Performance in a TV Movie/Pilot/Mini-Series or Series - Leading Young Actor”) before starting acting also on “the big screen”. Ryan has been in “The Deep End of the Ocean” and in “Just Looking” in 1999, winning the award for the “Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actor” in the movie “The Deep End of the Ocean”.

In 2002 we can find Ryan acting in the movie “Halloween: Resurrection”, and in 2003 in the movie “Spin”. In 2005 he’s been in the cast of the successful movie “The Ring Two”, and, in the next year, he played on “Final Destination 3”. Both these movies allowed Ryan to reach an international popularity, and to open for him a very successful career.

In 2007 Ryan appeared in the movie “Home of the Giants”, while in 2009 he’s been in the cast of “Wild Cherry”. His other movies are “The 5th Quarter” (2011), “Cheesecake Casserole”, “Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader”, and “My Hometown” (2012), “Dose of Reality” and “42” (2013), “The Last Rescue” (2015), “The Congressman”, “A Sunday Horse”, and “Domain” (2016), “2Years Of Love” (2017), and in the upcoming movies “Desolate Beauty”, “Distortion”, “Palominas”, “The Jurassic Games”, and “Tale of the Wet Dog”.

Ryan also appeared in many TV films and in TV series like “Veritas: The Quest” (in which he played a main role in 13 episodes), he participated in an episode of “Smallville (2004), in 3 episodes of “Comanche Moon” (2008), and he had a recurrent role in the famous TV series “Pretty Little Liars”, where he appeared in 16 episodes between 2010 and 2014. In 2012 he appeared also in one episode of “Hawaii Five-0”.

Ryan got married to Micol Duncan in 2004, but even for this couple it has been fatal the “crisis of the seventh year”, and they decided to divorced in 2011. Micol was his high school girlfriend. She had a huge role in Ryan’s life when he was starting his career, in fact he used to say that Micol was the reason behind his success in the show business. Micol always had a positive influence on Ryan: she used to instill a lot of confidence in him, but their relationship got deteriorated, and the two of them decided to take different paths. The never revealed the reason behind their divorce, and they are both inert to this question. Ryan just said that the relationship had ran its course, and the separation was better for both. Micol has never been seen in the media, and she did not comment on the separation from her former husband. There were no rumors about affairs or any secret relationship which led to the separation.