Paul Ryan is a painter, art writer, and curator living and working in Staunton, Virginia.  Since 1983 he has shown his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions in a variety of venues, including Reynolds Gallery (Richmond, VA),  Marion Gallery, Rockefeller Arts Center at SUNY Fredonia (Fredonia, New York), 1708 Gallery (Richmond, VA), Hartell Gallery at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), The McLean Project for the Arts (McLean, VA), The University Gallery at The University of South Carolina (Spartanburg, SC), Fine Arts Building Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA), The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA), Leeds Gallery at Earlham College (Richmond, Indiana), the Horton Gallery, Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA), Space 301 (Mobile, Alabama), and the Taubman Museum of Art (Roanoke, VA), among others.  

He is Professor Emeritus of Art at Mary Baldwin University, where he taught studio art and courses on contemporary art and art criticism from 1992 - 2016.  He also taught critical theory in the MFA program of the Department of Painting and Printmaking in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University from 2005 - 2016.  From 2017 through 2024, he was Professor of Art at Principia College, where he was named William Martin and Mina Merrill Prindle Professor of Fine Arts.

Since 1989 his writing has appeared in publications such as Art Papers, Sculpture, ArtLies, and Art in America. Ryan has been a contributing editor for Art Papers since 1990.  

His work is represented by Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, and his paintings are in numerous public, corporate, and private collections. Ryan was the recipient of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts professional fellowships in painting in 2009-10 and in 2016-17.