In 1993, Ryan became Shadow Secretary of State for HealthDavid Blunkett's policy aide, political spokesman and senior political adviser.[6][5][10] Labour, which was led by party leaderJohn Smith, was the largest opposition party in parliament and therefore shadowed the governing Conservative Party led by Prime MinisterJohn Major. Smith died in 1994 and Tony Blair was elected the new Labour leader. Blair intended to modernise the party under his New Labour project which moved it from the left to the centre-ground.[11] Ryan was a party loyalist under Blair's tenure and was considered a "firm favourite" among the inner circles of New Labour.[5] Ryan became Blunkett's senior education adviser in 1994;[12] Blunkett was re-elected to the shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment.[13] With the consultation of Blair's advisers, they co-authored several important documents on policy which eventually formed the basis of education policy in the early years of the New Labour government. Examples include Excellence for Everyone and Diversity and Excellence.[14] He worked with Blunkett and the rest of his team, David Miliband and Michael Barber, to build New Labour's education policy.[15][16]
In December 1999, Ryan left his post as Blunkett's adviser to manage Frank Dobson's successful bid to be selected as Labour's candidate in the 2000 London mayoral election. He became the spin-doctor for Dobson's campaign but fell ill from appendicitis in January 2000, before returning to the Department for Education and Employment upon his recovery.[25][26] He was the second spin-doctor to drop out of Dobson's campaign.[27]The Guardian's George Low suggested that Blunkett had allowed Ryan to manage Dobson's bid temporarily.[28] After Labour's victory in the 2001 general election, Blunkett was promoted to the Home Office as Secretary of State for the Home Department and Ryan ceased to be his adviser and became an independent writer and consultant.[29]
After the 2005 general election, Ryan succeeded Andrew Adonis as Prime Minister Tony Blair's senior education adviser.[30][31][32] He was also employed as one of Blair's special advisers and joined the Number 10 Policy Unit under David Bennett,[33] serving as its education adviser.[34] His appointment was well received among leaders in the teaching profession, including by the National Union of Teachers.[35] Ryan was given responsibility for building support in the Parliamentary Labour Party for Blair's controversial Education and Inspections Bill.[36] The Bill was approved by parliament in May 2006 but only due to Conservative support.[37] He was also a major figure in devising Labour's campaign strategy against Conservative leader David Cameron.[36] Ryan remained an adviser to the Prime Minister until 2007.[38]
Following Gordon Brown's resignation as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in May 2010, Ryan believed that Labour's next leader had to be someone "who can craft an approach to opposition and a plan for government that moves beyond New Labour, but which doesn't ignore the lessons that allowed 13 years in government". He added: "The person most likely to offer that balance is David Miliband."[39] Ryan had worked with Miliband from 1994 when he was David Blunkett's education adviser.[15] Miliband would lose narrowly to his brother Ed Miliband in 2010's Labour leadership election.
Ryan has also written multiple educational books.[51] In 2002, Ryan wrote the short book Freedom from Failure for the Centre for Policy Studies. It argued that the reforms to education of the previous fifteen years had to go further, with "radical solutions" such as closing more failing schools being proposed.[52] In 2004, he edited Bac or Basics: challenges for the 14–19 curriculum[53] and co-authored, with Cyril Taylor, Excellence in Education: The Making of Great Schools.[54] His 2008 publication Staying the Course: Changes to the Participation Age and Qualifications is a collection of essays from educationists featuring Mike Tomlinson, Michael Barber, Alison Wolf, Alan Smithers and Mike Baker. The essays covered the Brown ministry's plans to raise the school-leaving age and reform qualifications and discussed the benefits and downsides of these plans.[55] Ryan also wrote in Academies, a 2008 book produced by think tankCentreForum that recommended the expansion of the academies programme to the primary school sector. Other people who wrote in the book included Andrew Adonis, Paul Marshall and Anthony Seldon.[56] Ryan has written for other think tanks including the Social Market Foundation.[9] He is also the co-author of the 2011 book Lessons for Life with Sue Langmead.[57]
Ryan was appointed to the board of the Oak National Academy in 2024.
From 2015 to 2016, Ryan was part of the Scottish Commission on Widening Access.[58] This commission was supported by the Scottish Government and was chaired by Dame Ruth Silver.[63] After the commission's completion, Ryan chaired the group responsible for developing the Scottish Government's framework for fair access on the behalf of Peter Scott.[64] The framework, which was recommended in the Commission on Widening Access,[65] was officially launched in May 2019.[66]
^Chitty, Clyde. "The Birth of New Labour and the Death of Comprehensive Education". Forum for the Discussion of New Trends in Education. 54. ISSN0963-8253 – via Lawrence Wishart.