1991. He worked as mayor from 1991 to 1995, and from then until 1997 was regional director of the Norwegian Public Employment Service. In 1996, he applied for the job as chief-of-administration in Tromsø, but failed to get the job. He quit this job in protest against the state's unemployment policies, because he had been instructed to "depopulate Indre Namdal", because the agency policies required people to be moved if they could not get jobs locally. From 1997 to 2001, he was the director of Indre Namdal Regional Council. From 2001 to 2009, Ryan worked as a full-time member of parliament. On 19 December 2008, Ryan was appointed County Governor of Nord-Trøndelag. He started on 1 November 2009, succeeding Oddbjørn Nordset, who had been acting for Inger Lise Gjørv since 2008. Initially, he held the position for six years. Political career Ryan's first political activity started at the age of 15, when his grandfather Helge Opdal took him to a political meeting, where Ryan listed to the Labour politician Guttorm Hansen. In 1971, Ryan attended Red Youth's summer camp, the youth wing of the Red Electoral Alliance. He was given a code name and started a chapter in Overhalla. At upper secondary school, Ryan became an active promoter of the socialist newspaper Klassekampen. Ryan's interest for politics died down afterwards. Municipal and county Prior to the 1983 municipal election, Odd Einar Dørum, the leader of the Liberal Party asked him to run as a candidate for the municipal council, and Ryan accepted since he did not disagree with anything on the program. He was however not elected. In 1989, the Socialist Left Party started a chapter in Namsskogan, and Ryan was nominated as top candidate. Following the 1991 election, the party won 26.2% of the popular vote. The party cooperated with the Centre Party, which involved the Socialist Left Party gaining the mayor for the four-year term in exchange for supporting the Centre Party's candidate in the next term. Ryan, who had never met in a single municipal council meeting, was thereby elected mayor. Nationally, the party captured only seven mayors in the election. In the same election, Ryan was also elected member of Nord-Trøndelag County Council. The following year, Ryan was appointed as board member of the county-owned power company Nord-Trøndelag Elektrisitetsverk, where he sat until 1999. He was also leader of the Namsskogan chapter of the Socialist Left