Tony Ryan was born in Leeds and got his degrees from UMIST.

He is a keen cyclist and occasional mountaineer with a passion for gadgets. He spent some time a NATO fellow in the United States before returning to a lectureship at UMIST and he is currently ICI Professor of Physical Chemistry and Head of the Chemistry Department at the University of Sheffield.

His research covers the synthesis, structure, processing and properties of polymers especially their self-assembly processes. He has written a book on polymer processing or "how things are made from plastic".