Ryan joins Jim, Stanley, Erin, and Cathy Simms in traveling to Tallahassee and working on the Sabre Store project under Dwight's leadership. He briefly flirts with Erin when he learns she is planning to remain in Florida, but after she says he could join her as roommates and possibly begin dating in six months, he coldly states he is in love with Kelly. When Dwight and Nellie Bertram open a test store to see how the project could really work, Ryan is tasked to create and deliver a presentation about the Sabre Pyramid. However, he badly panics because his mother and Kelly are not there to keep him on an even keel, and Jim and Dwight's efforts to calm him down fail and leave Ryan to run out on the team and get on a bus.