James Ryan may refer to:
James Andrew Cheyne Ryan (born 10 February 1983) is a New Zealand rugby union footballer. He plays lock.
Ryan plays for the Highlanders in Super Rugby and for Otago in the National Provincial Championship.
Ryan was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, and attended Christ's College where he was a significant player in the school's First XV. He later attended Knox College at the University of Otago where he embarked upon Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce degrees. He made his All Black debut age 22, versus Fiji in 2005 and has played 9 test matches for the All Blacks. Ryan, who in 2005 was labelled by former All Black coach Laurie Mains as "potentially one of the great All Black locks", was sidelined in April 2007 with a serious knee injury. Ryan had 3 operations in the space of 12 months and announced the termination of his contract with the Otago Rugby Union in March 2008 and confirmed he was taking an indefinite break from rugby.
James Ryan (1863 – 21 June 1940) was an Irish-born Australian politician.
He was born in Doon in County Tipperary to farmers Patrick and Alice Ryan. He migrated to Melbourne at a young age to join his uncle, who soon died, and then went to New Zealand and finally Sydney around 1884. He was an assisted road superintendent around Orange and Lithgow before becoming a journalist with the Lithgow Mercury. He married schoolteacher Margaret Redmond, with whom he had three children. He was managing editor of the Mercury from 1889 to 1926. From 1917 to 1940 he was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, first for the Nationalist Party and then for the United Australia Party. He was a minister without portfolio from 1927 to 1930, Vice-President of the Executive Council for a month in May–June 1932, and minister without portfolio again from 1932 to 1938. Ryan died in Nowra in 1940.