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. 

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, Ryan was released to join Darlington in August 2011. After scoring ten league goals for the Quakers in 2011/12, Ryan moved to fellow National League club Hereford in 2012/13 and League Two York City in 2013/14.

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 (2015/16) 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 Ryan joined Exeter City in January for an undisclosed fee and as a replacement for Jayden Stockley who was soon to leave the club.    . 

Ryan made his Exeter City debut as a substitute against Morecambe 12 January 2019 and his first start the following week against Newport County. He scored his first goal on 9 April 2019 at Macclesfield. With fourteen league goals - a tally he repeated the following season - Ryan was City’s leading goalscorer in the truncated 2019/20 season which ended in a Wembley play-off defeat.

His most notable achievement in his time at Exeter City was to score hat-tricks in two successive home games against Colchester on 24 November 2020 and Tranmere on 12 December 2020 (this had not been achieved since Fred Whitlow in 1931).

Ryan joined League One side Shrewsbury for an "undisclosed fee" in June 2021 when he still had a year left on his Exeter contract. In the October of his first season with his new club he suffered heart palpitations in a game at Ipswich and, although playing again within weeks, underwent heart surgery at the end of the season to treat irregular rhythms. Fit to start the new season, he featured regularly for Shrewsbury during both 2022/23 and 2023/24 before his release in April 2024 after scoring 22 times in 135 league and cup games during his three-year stay in Shropshire.

By then aged thirty-two, Ryan signed for Cheltenham Town in July 2024.