John Patrick Ryan was born on May 17th in 1982 in Baltimore, MD. On June 22, 2000, Ryan commissioned in the United States Marine Corps as a Second Lieutenant. Working as an Infantry Officer, Ryan was assigned to the 5th Battalion 10th Marines. Ryan later deployed to Afghanistan in 2006. While patrolling the village of Korengal, Ryan and his team were tasked with extracting a family that had been marked as collaborators by the Taliban. While returning to the Black Hawk helicopter, a local orphan named Sahim begged Ryan to take him with them so that he could go someplace safe. Ryan agreed and motioned Sahim to join them on the helicopter. Unfortunately, Sahim pulled the pin of a hidden grenade while the helicopter was airborne. The ensuing explosion caused it to crash and killed Sahim, the family, and thirteen Marines onboard. Ryan was the sole survivor of the crash.

Ryan's commanding officer, Jimmy Moreno, was the first responder to the crash site. Despite suffering critical injuries to his spinal cord, Moreno stabilized him. Moreno then escorted Ryan to Bagram Air Base and joined him on a C-130 transport to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. After receiving three surgeries to his spine, Ryan awoke a month later. Moreno was the first person Ryan saw after awakening and visited Ryan every day while he was in the hospital for the next three months. Following his recovery, Ryan was medically discharged from the military due to his injuries. The U.S. military labeled the incident as being caused by a malfunction.

Ryan went on to obtain a Ph.D. in economics and then took a job at a private bank on Wall Street where he worked for Joe Mueller. Ryan later left Wall Street in 2013 and was recruited by the CIA to become a financial analyst. After completing his training at The Farm, Ryan was assigned to the Terror Finance and Arms Division in Washington, D.C. and was tasked with monitoring Yemen SWIFT network transactions.