He donates much of his spare time sitting on the Board of Directors of two not-for-profit film festivals that show independent films that would otherwise go unseen in Thunder Bay. In 2014 Ryan became part of the Guinness Book of World Records under the category of “Most Screenwriters on a Theatrically Distributed Film.” His script was chosen as 1 of 50 winners of the ‘Create 50’ screenwriting competition based out of London, England. Nearly 3,000 scripts were entered with Ryan being the ONLY Canadian to win the competition.