At 26, he is the youngest Mayor in Brent’s history. He has lived in the borough all his life and went to Preston Park Primary School and then Claremont High School.
Ryan is of Irish heritage and his paternal grandparents migrated from County Cork before eventually settling in Church Road.
He is the first person from his family to attend university and graduate with a Master’s Degree from University College London. He supported his studies by having a part-time job on a shop floor.
Ever since being elected as a councillor, he has used his platform to coordinate and campaign to improve Brent residents’ access to healthy food – mostly in areas of deprivation – by opening or supporting community kitchens as well as surplus food markets.
For years, he has promoted, encouraged and supported the active participation of young people from disadvantaged and minority communities to get involved in British democracy. Ryan is also a former Executive Member of the Patchwork Foundation and co-chair of the Brent Youth Parliament.
The issue of food hunger and child poverty is personal to him because he was raised by an incredible single mum in a council home who used to skip meals so she could afford his school uniforms.
As Mayor, he will be supporting the Brent Irish Advisory Service (BIAS), which strives to improve the well-being of the Irish community across North London and beyond. BIAS was set up in 1978 as a response to the welfare needs of the Irish community, one of the largest immigrant communities in London.