Church and Labor Question, nd.

John A. Ryan was born May 25, 1869, the first of eleven children born to William and Maria (Luby) Ryan in Vermillion, Minnesota. After graduating from Christian Brothers School in 1887, John entered the St. Thomas Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was the valedictorian of his graduating class at St. Thomas Seminary in 1892. Ryan graduated from the Saint Paul Seminary in 1898 and received his holy orders from Archbishop John Ireland the same year. He did his graduate studies at The Catholic University of America and received his licentiate in theology in 1900 and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from CUA in 1906. Between 1902 and 1915 Ryan taught at the Saint Paul Seminary before returning to the Catholic University of America as a Professor of Political Science, and in 1916 he was made a Professor of Moral Theology as well. Ryan retired from Catholic University in 1939. Ryan served as the Director of the National Catholic Welfare Council's Social Action Department during its first 25 years, from 1920 until his death in 1945. In 1933 the Catholic Church made Ryan a domestic prelate (Monsignor). Monsignor John A. Ryan died on September 16, 1945.

John A. Ryan was the foremost social justice advocate and theoretician in the Catholic Church of the United States during the first half in the 20th century. Ryan’s speeches and writings were focused on economic and political issues. His Ph.D. dissertation (published later as A Living Wage) was an influential early economic and moral argument for minimum wage legislation. Ryan staked out an economic position that maintained the primacy of private property but spurned overly acquisitive and unregulated free market capitalism as economically unhealthy and morally bankrupt.

Although primarily an intellectual, thinker, and author, Ryan used his writing, public speaking, and position as the Director of the Social Action Department to encourage political and economic changes he felt necessary for a more fair and egalitarian society. Ryan supported minimum wage and child labor legislation, even though the latter position made him powerful enemies from within the American Catholic Church.