The Ryan Lecture was established to mark the lifetime contribution to the management of victims of trauma made by Professor James "Jim" Ryan, the founding chairman of Trauma Care.  It is given annually at the Trauma Care conference by a distinguished speaker invited by the Trauma Care Council. 

Professor Ryan's long and distinguished military career ended as Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps as Joint Professor of Military Surgery at the Royal Army Medical College, London and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. His military experience included services in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, the Falkland Islands, Nepal, the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia.

On leaving the military, Jim Ryan was, from 1995 to 2007 the first Leonard Cheshire Professor in Conflict Recovery at the Department of Surgery, University College London. He was also visiting professor in trauma care and honorary consultant in emergency medicine at University College London Hospitals. In 2002 he became International Professor of Surgery at the United Services University for the Health Sciences in Maryland, USA. In 2007 he was appointed emeritus professor at the Centre for Trauma, Conflict and Catastrophe Medicine at St George's University of London.
Professor Ryan was convenor for the 'Diploma in the Medical Care of Catastrophes' at the Society of Apothecaries in London. He is the immediate past President of the Conflict and Catastrophe Faculty at the Society and a past President of the Catastrophe and Conflict Forum at the RSM. He was awarded the OBE for services to military and humanitarian medicine in 2011.