Barry Ryan (Catholic priest)

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Reverend Father Barry Ryan (born 1949) is a U.S. Roman Catholic priest who, in late December 2004, pleaded guilty to repeatedly molesting a six-year-old boy, for which he was sentenced to two years in prison.

After his ordination in 1976, Ryan worked in parishes in Brooklyn, New York before enlisting as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force in 1984. He left the Air Force in 1995 after allegations of improper sexual conduct while he had been stationed at Mobile, Alabama. Also, Ryan was suspended from his priestly duties.

Until the spring of 2003, he was a library media specialist at Martin County High School in Stuart, Florida, where he was named Teacher of the Year in 2001. He took a medical leave of absence in the wake of news reports that he might have been involved in improper sexual activity during his time as an Air Force chaplain. Also, he was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. Shortly afterwards, between May and October 2003, he forced a six-year-old boy to perform oral sex upon him at the boy's family home in Long Island.

Ryan attempted to commit suicide in 2007 by slitting his own throat. Shortly thereafter, he was ordered from the Missouri hospice in which he was residing to begin serving his two-year sentence in New York.

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