In 2017, Ryan was hired as an assistant curator at Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York; and by 2022, she was promoted to curator.[12][13][9] Prior to her appointment she previously worked at the New Museum, MoMA PS1, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.[12] Ryan has researched "time-based media" of the 1960s and 1970s.[14] She has also been involved in the study and research of digital art preservation, including NFTs.[14][15][16][17]
Ryan and co-curator Paul Vanouse [Wikidata] organized the 2021 exhibition Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art at the gallery.[18][19] The Difference Machines exhibition features 17 artists and has a hybrid display design featuring interactivity, the artwork is technical but also accessible to people without technical knowledge, and it exists as a learning space.[20][21] A review in The Brooklyn Rail discussed the exhibition's themes of "the use of digital technologies for passive (but not always effective) surveillance, how identities are shaped by technology, the erasure of marginalized communities, and the active reassertion of control."[22]
Other exhibitions at Albright-Knox she has co-curated include Tony Conrad: A Retrospective (2018), and We The People: New Art from the Collection (2018–2019).[23]
In March 2024, Ryan was named the editor-in-chief of Artforum magazine, succeeding David Velasco.[10][24][25]
Blauvelt, Andrew; Castillo, Greg; Choi, Esther; Clarke, Alison (2015). "Toward a Stroboscopic History". Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia (art exhibition). Tina Rivers Ryan (contributor). Walker Art Center. p. 380. ISBN9781935963097.
Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2018). Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective (art exhibition). Rachel Adams (author), Diedrich Diederichsen (author), Branden Wayne Joseph (author), David Grubbs (author), Jay Sanders (author), Constance DeJong (author), Vera Alemani (author), Tina Rivers Ryan (author), Annie Ochmanek (author), Andrew Lampert (author), Christopher Müller (author), Tony Oursler (contributor), Anthony Elms (author), Henriette Huldisch (author), Paige Sarlin (author), Christopher Williams (author). Albright-Knox Art Gallery. ISBN9783960983361.
Tenconi, Roberta; Ryan, Tina Rivers (2020). Matt Mullican: Photographs: Catalogue 1971–2018 (art exhibition). James Welling (photographer), Matt Mullican (artist), Anne Rorimer (contributor), Marie-Luise Angerer (contributor). Milan, Italy: Skira and Hangar Bicocca. ISBN978-8857241173.
Goodeve, Thyrza Nichols; Ryan, Tina Rivers (January 12, 2021). Art, Engagement, Economy: the Working Practice of Caroline Woolard (art exhibition). Patricia C. Phillips (foreword), D. Burnett (contributor), Alison Burstein (contributor), Stamatina Gregory (contributor), Larissa Harris (contributor), Leigh Claire La Berge (contributor), Stephanie Owens (contributor), Cybele Maylone (contributor), Steven Matijcio (contributor), Sheetal Prajapati (contributor), Caitlin Julia Rubin (contributor), Mierle Ukeles (contributor). Eindhoven, Netherlands: Onomatopee Projects. ISBN978-9493148345.