Ryan was born and raised in Papua New Guinea to a medical anthropologist mother and professional musician and photographer father. He a U.S citizen but has lived in France, Bangladesh, Australia, The U.S.A, Cambodia, Thailand and The Netherlands and Spain

He attended the Duke Ellington High School for the Arts in Washington D.C and later the Rotterdam Conservatory (CODARTS) in The Netherlands to study music. During a particularly stressful period in his studies, he injured his hand while performing. After a long period of attempting to heal the injury through more conventional therapies, he learned self-hypnosis and almost instantly totally recovered his ability to play music!

This led to an intense fascination and deep study and practice of meditation and self-hypnosis, NLP, coaching, different psychological modalities and diverse fields of personal development.