Ryan had also been nominated for inclusion in Operation Osprey ""Unternehmen Fischadler"", an Abwehr plan to engineer resistance and sabotage amongst the Irish in the event of a feared American invasion. Osprey was planned to work in conjunction with a suite of German Intelligence operations devised by then Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, Director of Office VI, Foreign Political Information Service, Reichs Security HQ. using No.1 SS. Special Service Troop. Ryan's role in the plan was to get De Valera and the IRA to work together. There was little realism in that part of the plan (as Ryan realised), but Ryan's main objective, after being four years out of Ireland and in increasingly bad health, was to get home.