Ryan played a total of 136 roles. His most famous is that of a villainous general and heroin smuggler in the first ‘Lethal Weapon’ movie. He also had a role as a police officer in ‘Magnum Force’ and he could be seen as cunning, murderous businessman Anthony Tonell in Las Vegas in TV soap ‘Santa Barbara’.
The actor also played Burke Devlin on the 1960s soap opera ‘Dark Shadows’ for a season, but he was fired for his alcoholism. Ryan acknowledged his drinking problems in his autobiography ‘Fall of a Sparrow’. In the 90s he was seen in the popular sitcom ‘Dharma & Greg’, his last major role.
Ryan was married to Barbara Albertine and had a total of three children.