Paul Ryan

Some Lesser Known Facts About Paul Ryan

• Paul Ryan belongs to the fifth generation of Wisconsinites and it is believed that one of his paternal ancestors arrived in Wisconsin before the Civil War.

• In 1884, his great-grandfather, Patrick William Ryan, founded an earth-moving company that later became known as Ryan Incorporated Central.

• His grandfather, Stanley M. Ryan, served as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin.

• While filming for the PBS series Finding Your Roots in 2018, Ryan came to know that his DNA results included 3 percent Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.

• While growing up as the youngest among four children of his parents in Janesville, Ryan attended St. Mary’s Catholic School. He later attended Joseph A. Craig High School., where he became president of his junior class.

  

• In the second year of his school, he took a job at McDonald’s.

• Ryan played various sports including soccer and basketball in school and college.

• His father died of a heart attack when Ryan was 16. According to Ryan, the heart attack was caused due to heavy alcohol consumption. While talking about his father being an alcoholic, Ryan says,
  

  Alcohol made him more distant, irritable and stressed … whiskey had washed away some of the best parts of the man I knew.”

• Ryan’s family has a fatal history of heart attacks before age 60 and because of this Paul Ryan pursues an intense fitness program called P9OX.

  

• During college, he was a member of the College Republicans and volunteered for John Boehner in his congressional campaign.

• In his senior year, Paul Ryan was voted “Biggest Brown-Noser.”

• According to Ryan, he was inspired to get involved in public service by the Russian novelist Ayn Rand’s works.

• In 1992, he became a legislative aide to Senator Robert Kasten of Wisconsin.

• From 1993 to 1995, he worked as an assistant and speechwriter for the Empower America think tank, which was co-founded by Rep. Jack Kemp.

• From 1995 to 1997, he worked as a legislative director for Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas.

  

• He won his first election to the House in 1998 at the age of 28, becoming the youngest member of his freshman class.

• Ryan met his wife, Janna, while he was serving in Congress. He later proposed to her at a famous fishing spot, Big St. Germain Lake, in Wisconsin in April 2000.

• In 2008, Paul Ryan hit the headlines for writing “The Roadmap for America’s Future.” This plan contributed to economic growth by fixing the tax code and paying off the national debt by reforming Medicare and Social Security.

• From 2011 to 2014, he served as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

• Ryan negotiated the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 with Democratic Senator Patty Murray. This was the first budget agreement in a divided Congress since 1986.

• In July 2014, he released a 73-page plan to fight poverty, “Expanding Opportunity in America.”

• On 29 October 2015, when Paul Ryan was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, he became the first person from Wisconsin to hold this position and the youngest speaker in nearly 150 years.

  

• After retiring from Congress, Ryan was appointed to the board of Fox Corporation in March 2019 and served as chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.

• He was a guest lecturer for political science and economics at the University of Notre Dame during the 2019-2020 academic year.

• In October 2019, he launched the American Idea Foundation, a nonprofit organization fighting poverty.

• In February 2021, he joined the private equity firm Solamere Capital as a partner and Chair of the Executive Partner Group.

• He is famous for sleeping in his office.