Now retired, Ryan lives on 78 acres of heavily forested land in Grafton, Vermont, with his wife, Joan, a retired sportswriter and nationally syndicated columnist for "The Washington Post". His wife was one of the first female sportswriters to ever grace a locker room (not to be confused with another sportswriter named Joan Ryan) and also wrote a book on women in sports. The two Texans met in college, fell in love with Vermont while Ryan was on staff at Yale, and have been married since their senior year at Rice.