His research is at the intersection of political ecology and media studies, focusing on the politics of water in Central California and semiotic problems of environmental visibility/invisibility.
Prior to starting the doctoral program at Harvard, Ryan worked as a photojournalist for The New York Times, The Washington Post, ProPublica and others, reporting on migration, labor, and the environment across the United States and Mexico. In 2022 Ryan was awarded the American Mosaic Journalism Prize for his reporting on Mexican-American communities in California and New York, and from 2022-23 he served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prizes for Photojournalism.