Ryan’s research program explores how health professionals engage in self-regulated learning, with a particular focus on the cognitive, behavioural, and social factors influencing their learning. He uses theories from educational psychology to understand how to conceptualize and measure how learners’ goals, strategies, and beliefs influence their learning processes and outcomes.

The ultimate goal of his research is to translate this understanding to design training environments that prepare clinicians to be effective in their future lifelong learning (especially using healthcare simulation and other technology-enabled education).

His additional research interests include: skill retention and transfer, translational simulation, validation and assessment, quality improvement, data-driven health professions education, and experimental research designs.