J. Clyde Ryan was born in 1899 in Muscatine, Iowa. He attended city schools in Muscatine and worked before and after school to augment his family's income. He entered Muscatine High Shcool which he attended for three years. He then attended Oberlin Academy and Oberlin College. Thereafter he attended Cornell College, from which he graduated in 1915. He married in 1916 and he and Mrs. Ryan spent the following year in Turkey doing war relief work. After the war he worked at Ball Brothers Company in Muncie, Indiana, and later was vice-president of Ray-O-Vac Company in Madison, Wisconsin. He retired to Tucson, Arizona, in 1958. In 1952 he published A Skeptic Dude in Arizona and in 1968 he published I'm Glad I Lived Then.