John Dennis Ryan was born in Hancock, Michigan, the son of John C. and Joanna Ryan. His father was a mining expert and prospector, a pioneer in the Lake Superior copper district, but the son for a number of years showed little interest in mining.
He didn't accept the college education which his parents offered him.
At seventeen Ryan went to work in a general store owned by an uncle in one of the Michigan copper towns, and for the next eight years was a clerk. At twenty-five he went to Colorado, and obtained work as a traveling salesman of lubricating oils. A part of his territory was in Montana, and there he met and sold oils to Marcus Daly, the copper magnate, who more than once offered him a position. But Ryan, so far satisfied with his job, refused.
Not until he married did ambition begin to stir within him. He was then thirty-two and earning $200 a month. He now began buying stock in Daly's bank and trust company in Montana, and in the course of several years became an important factor in its affairs. Around the turn of the century, the Montana copper busines was in a turmoil. The Amalgamated Copper Company had been organized by H. H. Rogers and the Rockefellers, and had taken over the Daly-Haggin-Tevis holdings in the Anaconda properties, being opposed by William A. Clark and later by Frederick Augustus Heinze. The rival factions waged political as well as litigious and physical warfare.
Rogers asked Ryan to take charge of affairs in Montana for the Amalgamated. Ryan made so many friends among the voters that Heinze's faction sustained a serious political defeat, and Heinze was forced to sell out to the Amalgamated in 1906. When Rogers died in 1909, Ryan was elected his successor as president of Amalgamated. He dissolved the corporation, turning it back again into the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. The great expansion in the use of copper, especially for electrical purposes, was now in full swing. The company, with its great buying power, was able to take over, often at low prices, and to put on a paying basis, valuable properities in Mexico and South America, including the Chile Copper Company, which owned one of the largest known bodies of copper ore.
In 1922 the American Brass Company, America's largest consumer of copper ore, was also absorbed. Ryan organized the Montana Power Company, and sold it several years later to a subsidiary of the Electric Bond and Share Company for more than $82, 000, 000. His power company supplied most of the current for domestic use in Montana and for nearly all the mines of the state.
In 1926 he was accused by the Interstate Commerce Commission of making contracts with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul (of which he was a director) so advantageous to his copper company that they aided in bringing about the insolvency of the road.
The World War had greatly increased the use of copper, and the Anaconda's profits had mounted enormously. Ryan resigned its presidency in 1917, however, in order to serve as a member of the war council of the American Red Cross. Shortly afterward, he became director of the Bureau of Aircraft Production (May 1918), assistant secretary of war (August 1918), and chairman of the Aircraft Board, his particular task being the stimulation of lagging aircraft production. Under his direction, $1, 000, 000, 000 was spent in aviation. Following charges that not one fighting plane of American manufacture reached the front, Ryan, before a congressional investigating committee after the armistice, vigorously defended his administration.
On November 21, 1918, he had resigned his government post. He was then elected chairman of the board of directors of the Anaconda Company, which place he held until his death. He was also president of the United Metals Selling Company, and chairman of the boards of the Andes Copper Mining Company, the Chile Copper Company, and the Chile Exploration Company. He was a director in several banks and corporations. He died in New York City.
Under Ryan's direction Anaconda Copper Mining Company became one of the greatest industrial enterprises in existence. At his death it was the world's largest producer of copper and fabricator of copper products, and its assets were said to be more than $700, 000, 000. While at the head of Montana Power Company he brought about the first important use on the North American continent of hydro-electric power for railroads--namely, in the electrification of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway through the Rocky Mountains. For his church activities and benefactions, Pope Pius XI made him a Knight of St. Gregory the Great in 1923. John D. Ryan was named ninth in a listing of the 100 most important people in Montana of the 20th century. He was inducted posthumously into the National Mining Hall of Fame at Leadville, Colorado in 2005.
Ryan married an old playmate, Nettie Gardner of Hancock, Michigan, in 1896. His only surviving child was a son, John Carlos Ryan.
