 In February 1882, he was appointed Major General and Chief of the General Staff, but only held this position for a few months, when in June of that year he was appointed Council of State ("Statsråd") and head of the Ministry of Land Defence, commonly known as Minister for War.In this capacity, he presented to the Riksdag of 1883, that of the 1880 Land Defence Committee's ("Lantförsvarskommittén"), of which he was a member, large drafted proposal of a new army order; based on recruited regular troops and conscripts.However, despite the careful investigation of the defence issue and the persuasive manner in which Ryding fought for the implementation of the proposal, it was not adopted, mainly for the reason, that the "Andra kammaren", by an overwhelming majority, decided to delete the provision contained in the proposal on the formation of reserve troops for the army, after which the "Första kammaren" rejected the proposal on the method of procurement of the regular troops.