Joe Ryan, Bayonne’s Public Information Officer, has announced that he will retire, effective December 1, after more than thirty years of service with the City of Bayonne. Ryan said, “It has been an honor to serve the people of Bayonne since January 1996.” Ryan continued, “I have been involved in announcing and explaining numerous policies, events, and municipal services. I have written news stories on topics that have included visits by Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin for our September 11th memorial; Hurricanes Sandy and Ida; the Corona Virus (COVID); the closing of the Military Ocean Terminal-Bayonne (MOTBY); and the groundbreaking for the 1888 Studios.”
He has served with five elected mayors, two interim mayors, and one acting mayor who took the oath of office. Ryan has worked with nine sets of City Council members. He credits his longevity to the civil service system. Mayor Leonard P. Kiczek appointed Ryan a provisional civil servant with the title of Public Information Officer in 1996. In 1998, Ryan requested a state-administered civil service test, so that he could become permanent in his position. While taking what was allegedly the Public Information Officer exam, Ryan noticed that most of the questions were about health-related topics. After managing to pass what was apparently the wrong civil service test, he was made permanent in his job title in 1998. Ryan said, “This experience proved that if you work hard, study hard, and pass the wrong test, you can make it in America.” He added, “In a few weeks, I will be retiring as Public Information Officer, but, given that strange test, I might actually be stepping down as the greatest Sanitary Inspector you didn’t know we had.”
Through most of Ryan’s career, the majority of Bayonne residents received the bulk of their local news from The Bayonne Community News and The Jersey Journal. Now that both newspapers are gone, Bayonne readers obtain most local information from the City of Bayonne’s webpages and various private, online media. As technology changed, Ryan made the transition from dropping off press releases in person, to faxing them, and then to emailing them to the media.
In addition to writing approximately 7,500 press releases and website announcements, Ryan has produced an estimated 4,500 proclamations since 1996. Most of those proclamations have honored people or groups, or have recognized the importance of various medical conditions, issues, birthdays or anniversaries.
He has served as Bayonne’s liaison with the U.S. Census Bureau for Census 2000, Census 2010, and Census 2020. Ryan is proud that Bayonne’s population rose in each one of those headcounts after declines in every census from 1940 through 1990. Ryan has also worked as the staff person for the Bayonne Historic Preservation Commission. For many years, he has also served as co-chair of Bayonne’s annual Holocaust remembrance program. In that role, he has met several Holocaust survivors who have served as guest speakers.
In his retirement, Ryan will continue teaching Political Science classes at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, where he has been a Senior Adjunct Lecturer since 2014. Ryan is considering writing a play about municipal government, saying, “There is no shortage of material.” He also plans to travel with his wife, Nuala, who retired recently as the Art teacher at Our Lady of Czestochowa School in Jersey City.
Joe Ryan was educated at St. Vincent DePaul Grammar School (which closed in 2008) in Bayonne, St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. At Georgetown, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service, and then completed an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Government.
Before starting with the City of Bayonne in 1996, Ryan served as a Research Scholar at Freedom House in New York, where he worked on an annual survey of freedom in the world from 1989 to 1995.
