Paul Ryan was born on January 29, 1970 in Janesville, Wisconsin to parents Paul Ryan Sr. and Betty Ryan. He has one sister and two brothers: Janet, Tobin and Stan. Ryan graduated from Joseph A. Craig High School in Janesville, and then he went on to attend Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In 1992, he was awarded a degree in economics and political science.

Ryan began his career working as a marketing consultant for a Wisconsin construction company. A few years later he entered politics by working as a legislative aide for U.S. Senator Bob Kasten, then for Senator Sam Brownback, and later for New York Republican Representative Jack Kemp.

Ryan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Wisconsin’s Congressional District 1, in 1998. He later served as the chairman of the House Budget committee from 2011 through 2015.

On August 11, 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced that Paul Ryan would be his running mate for vice president. The duo was officially named the Republican Party’s nominees on August 28, 2012. However, Romney and Ryan were defeated by President Obama.

Despite the loss of his vice-presidential bid, Ryan remained popular in his home state, and he was reelected to the House in 2014. Then in 2015 he became the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Soon after, Ryan was called on to take a larger role in the Republican Party’s leadership when John Boehner resigned as speaker of the House on September 25, 2015. Initially, Ryan refused to run for speaker, but he later agreed to after receiving support from three factions from within the Republican party.

Ryan was elected as the 54th speaker of the House on October 29, 2015. At the age of 45, he was the youngest speaker to be elected since 1869. Less than three years later, in April 2018, Ryan announced that he would retire. He served out his term until January 2019.

After retiring, Paul Ryan joined the board of directors of the Fox Corporation, which owns the Fox News Channel and the Fox broadcast network, in March 2019. He also joined the University of Notre Dame faculty as a professor of the practice for the 2019-20 academic year as a guest lecturer in pollical science and economics.

Ryan has been married to Janna Little Ryan since December 2000. They have three children together: Liza, Sam and Charlie.