Sid Ryan

Sid Ryan
Ryan speaking at a rally at Queen's Park in Toronto
President of the Ontario Federation of Labour
In office 2009–2015
Preceded by	Wayne Samuelson
Succeeded by	Chris Buckley
President of CUPE Ontario
In office 1992–2009
Personal details
Born	1952 (age 64–65) Dublin, Ireland
Political party	New Democratic Party

Patrick Cyril "Sid" Ryan (born 1952) is a Canadian labour union leader and politician. Ryan is the former president of the Ontario Federation of Labour.

Born in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, and third eldest of ten children, Ryan emigrated to Canada at age 23. He and his wife Sheila have three daughters: Lisa, Susie, and Amanda.

Ryan helped to organize a United Steelworkers of America (USWA) local where he worked shortly after arriving in Canada. He has been a Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) activist since he went to work for Ontario Hydro in 1976. He served as CUPE Ontario president from 1992 to 2009, representing 225,000 workers in the public sector. CUPE is the Canada's largest and fastest growing union with nearly 600,000 members. CUPE Ontario is the largest provincial division. Ryan also served as general vice-president of CUPE National until 2009.

Under Ryan’s leadership, CUPE Ontario focused on issues such as privatization, forced mergers, cutbacks, and restructuring. Ryan continues to lead major campaigns and proactively influence policy and legislative decisions in health care, municipal, school board, social service, and university sectors. He is a proponent of increasing the accessibility of university education across Ontario.

Ryan appeared regularly on Michael Coren Live and CHEX-TV Durham, and writes a bi-weekly column for the Toronto Sun. He is also a frequent guest on TVOntario’s current affairs programs, The Agenda with Steve Paikin. He is a frequent speaker in the Canadian labour movement.

Ryan has been recruited by human rights groups to act as a Canadian peace observer in Northern Ireland, to march alongside members of the United Farm Workers in California and to lobby Texas politicians for a commutation of Stanley Faulder's death sentence.