Peter Ryan (police commissioner)

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Peter James Ryan was the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police from 1996 until 2002.

He was recruited to the position from an international pool of applicants following the controversial Wood Royal Commission into Corruption of the NSW Police that ran from 1995 to 1997. Ryan was the successful applicant to the position and was appointed by the state Labor government of Premier Bob Carr. Prior to coming to Australia, Ryan was employed in various English police forces and had climbed to be the head of national police training in that country.

The 2000 Sydney Olympics were held during Ryan's Commissionership and were a widely lauded success including from a safety and security point of view. Ryan was to quit on acrimonious terms soon after. He has since lived in countries like Greece, Doha and Dubai focusing on security consultancy work and working on various international events such as the 2004 Athens Olympics, 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Ryan was largly spoken about within the Australian media and in 2003 a biography, Peter Ryan: The Inside Story, was written by Sydney author Sue Williams. The book stayed on the bestseller list for many weeks.

Ryan is also now in the midst of divorcing from his wife Adrienne Ryan, author of A Silent Love (2000), who had moved to Sydney with him upon his appointment as the New South Wales Police Commissioner. She has continued to live in the northern suburbs of Sydney with their two children, Elizabeth and Georgina, and has gone on to become active in politics and was the mayor of Ku-ring-gai Council a local council in the area in Sydney.