From 2001 to 2017, Ryle was successively chair and executive director of the Rift Valley Institute, a research and public information organisation operating in Eastern Africa that he founded with Jok Madut Jok and Philip Winter. He was a member of the International Eminent Persons Group, reporting on slavery and abduction in Sudan.Ross, O. (2003) Research reclaims Sudan's 'lost souls'; Team put names, facesto those abducted, sold into slavery Investigation identified 11,000 peopleSkinner, E. B. (2008) A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery, Free Press. Since 2007, he has been Legrand Ramsey Professor of Anthropology at Bard College, a liberal arts college in New York state. He has been a board member of the Human Rights Watch Africa Division, the Media Development Investment Fund and the scholarly journal African Affairs.
