John C. Ryan (born 19 June 1938) is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent and police officer.Antony Schmitz, The Spy Who Said No, Mother Jones Magazine, April 1988, pp. 16-19. He had been an FBI agent between 1966 and 1987 before being fired for refusing to investigate nonviolent activists.Bud Schultz, Ruth Schultz: The price of dissent: testimonies to political repression in America p. 372 He lost his job in September 1987 ten months short of retirement. He was thus ineligible for a full pension.Zinn, Howard, 2003, The Twentieth Century: A People's History, HarperCollins Publishing, New York, New York In a report by the LA Times, he stated his belief that the Bureau could reinstate him to a position which would not conflict with his personal beliefs that US involvement in Central America is "violent, illegal and immoral."FBI Agent Fired for Beliefs Tries to Reclaim Job - Los Angeles Times, December 1987
He was also a critic of COINTELPRO.Hodge, James and Linda Cooper, 2004, Disturbing the Peace: The Story of Father Roy Bourgeois and the Movement to Close the School of the Americas, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York
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