Neil Ryan competed for Ireland in the men’s 100 metres at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games, where he ran 10.78 seconds in his heat.

Ryan ran for Nenagh Olympic Athletic Club and was one of the first Irish sprinters to compete at the Olympic Games since Fanahan McSweeney at the Munich 1972 Games.

He went on to set an Irish 100m record of 10.46 seconds in Riga, Latvia in 1997, and won four Irish senior 100m titles during his career, in 1992 and from 1996 to 1998, along with two Irish indoor titles. Ryan also represented Ireland at the 1997 World Athletics Championships, where he was part of the 4x100m relay team that set an Irish record of 39.46 seconds. Ryan was educated at Kingston University and the University of Limerick, where he studied information technology.