text: In 1951, Ryan was reunited with Crossfire costar Robert Mitchum in The Racket, directed by John Cromwell; that same year, Ray again directed him in a film noir, On Dangerous Ground, with Ida Lupino. Ryan then made the film adaptation of Clash by Night (1952) with Barbara Stanwyck and Marilyn Monroe under Fritz Lang's direction. According to film critic David Thomson, "at RKO Ryan created the character of a modern neurotic such as the American screen had not dreamed of before."
  His last film at RKO for a number of years was Beware, My Lovely (1952) with Lupino, made for her production company.
  Post-RKO
  Ryan went to MGM where he played a villain in Anthony Mann's western The Naked Spur (1953), starring James Stewart. The picture was very popular.
  He appeared in City Beneath the Sea (1953) for Budd Boetticher at Universal, Inferno (1953) at Fox, and Alaska Seas (1954) at Paramount.
  He was the leading man for Shirley Booth in About Mrs. Leslie (1954) and Greer Garson in Her Twelve Men  (1954). The latter was made at MGM, now being run by Dore Schary, RKO's previous studio head, who cast Ryan as the head villain in Bad Day at Black Rock (1954).
  He appeared in an off-Broadway production of Coriolanus (1954) directed by John Houseman.
  Ryan returned to RKO for Escape to Burma (1955) with Stanwyck. More widely seen was Sam Fuller's House of Bamboo (1955) and Raoul Walsh's The Tall Men (1955), both at Fox. By now his fee was reported as $150,000 per film.