In a 2019 interview with the BBC, Ryan was asked if he was involved in any of the incidents of which Thatcher accused him, to which he responded "I would say most of them. One way or another, yes I had a hand in most them - yes, [Thatcher] was right". He stated that his only regret about his contribution to the Brighton hotel bombing, which killed 5 people, was that "I wasn't even more effective... I would like to have been much more effective, but we didn't do too badly".