Michael Ryan competed in the individual foil, épée and sabre at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, qualifying from his first-round pool in the foil before his elimination – a Games at which the absence of a coach or manager placed both Irish fencers at a significant disadvantage against opponents with decades of continuous international experience.

Ryan’s path to fencing was through a sunflower stalk sword fight on the front lawn of the family home in Drumcondra: his parents, seeking a sport to engage their children, found an advertisement for fencing in the Evening Press and enrolled the sixteen-year-old Michael at the Betty Robbins Associated Arts Academy on Grafton Street, where the coach was the celebrated Paddy Duffy.

Ryan’s progress was remarkable: he switched to the épée with exceptional results, winning the national épée title in 1962 and retaining it in 1963, and in 1964 won thirteen of his fifteen fights at the quadrangular internationals and won the Irish Open title. At the time of Tokyo he was studying mathematics and theoretical physics at UCD. He and John Bouchier-Hayes both achieved top-sixteen finishes at the 1963 World Junior Championships in Ghent – a first for Irish fencing.

He went on to compete at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.