One-time Torquay United striker Ryan Bowman joined City from Motherwell in 2019 and in a two-and-a-half season stay scored 33 league goals before moving to Shrewsbury Town. Later playing for Cheltenham Town, he received a three-and-a-half year ban from football for betting offences. 

Ryan came through Carlisle United’s youth system and, after a short loan at Workington, made his first-team debut in April 2010. After nine league appearances for Carlisle in total, and a further loan at Workington, he was released to join Darlington in August 2011. After scoring ten league goals for the Quakers in 2011/12, he spent the following two seasons with National League club Hereford and League Two York City.

After his release from York in May 2014, Ryan moved to Devon for the first time to sign for newly-relegated Torquay United for whom he was to score 12 times in 37 league games. From Plainmoor he returned north to Gateshead before spending two-and-a-half seasons at Motherwell.

It was after scoring 10 goals in 72 league matches for the Fir Park club that he joined Exeter City in January 2019 for an undisclosed fee as a replacement for Jayden Stockley who was soon to leave the club. Making his Exeter City debut as a substitute against Morecambe on 12 January 2019, and his first start the following week against Newport County, he scored his first goal for the club on 9 April 2019 at Macclesfield.

Grabbing fourteen league goals in the truncated 2019/20 season - which ended in a Wembley play-off defeat - he scored a similar number of goals during the following campaign 9when he also netted hat-tricks in two successive home games against Colchester on 24 November 2020 and Tranmere on 12 December 2020 (a feat that had not been achieved since Fred Whitlow in the 1930s).

Although he had a year remaining on his City contract, Ryan joined League One side Shrewsbury for an "undisclosed fee" in June 2021 and, in the October of his first season with his new club, he suffered heart palpitations in a game at Ipswich. Playing again within weeks, he nevertheless underwent heart surgery at the end of the season to treat irregular rhythms.

Fit to start the new season, he featured regularly for Shrewsbury until his release in May 2024 after scoring 22 times in 135 league and cup games during his three-year stay in Shropshire. By then aged thirty-two, he signed for Cheltenham Town in July 2024 but only managed three goals from eight league starts (and ten appearances from the bench) during 2024/25 and was not retained at the end of his contract. 

After various rumours over the preceding months, it was announced in July 2025 that he had received a 42-month ban for thousands of betting offences, many of which involved games in which he was playing. Of the overall total of 6,387 bets, around 2,600 were placed when he was an Exeter City player.