Ryan Howard went from temp to boss in The Office, and here are all the details about his journey you missed!
Ryan Howard is probably one of the most problematic characters in The Office. From the very beginning, Ryan was a temp employee who felt incredibly uncomfortable with his boss's antics and obsession with him. However, as the show went on, Ryan because worse and worse, becoming incredibly egotistical and trying to become "the next best thing."
Ryan is an awful influence on Kelly Kapoor, who he shares an on-again, off-again relationship with throughout the entire series. He makes awful judgment calls and always seems like he is out to scam people out of their money. Ryan is also one of the few "side" characters in The Office to be listed as a main character in the opening. Ryan left the series in the first episode of season 9 to follow Kelly to Ohio but returned for the series finale during Angela and Dwight's wedding.
In episode 21 of season six, "Happy Hour," Erin and Andy see their friends Ryan and Kelly on the Dance Dance Revolution machine during their happy hour outing. Ryan and Kelly are deeply focused on the game, asking for the other new couple to not disturb them as they play. The song in the background is incredibly upbeat, and the pair are moving their feet like rapid-fire as Ryan holds onto Kelly's hand. Eventually, Erin and Andy distract the pair enough and the two fail the song, collecting a small amount of tickets in return.
Apparently B.J. Novak started basing his character's relationship with Kelly on his own relationship with Mindy Kaling (the actress behind Kelly). The pair are incredibly close friends in real life and often find themselves arguing and making up again time and time again. B.J. is the godfather to Mindy's child and seems to have an on and off-again relationship with her, but always maintaining the fact that they are friends through it all.
In seasons four and five, Ryan becomes obsessed with Kelly once she becomes a taken woman. After Ryan dumps her to move on to take a position at corporate, Kelly is incredibly depressed. She ends up working on trying to get over it and falls for Darryl. The two form a relationship around the same time Ryan ends up coming back to work at the Scranton Branch. The two make eyes at each other pretty often, but it's clear that Kelly still isn't over how she was dumped.
Eventually, Ryan wins her over and convinces her to break up with Darryl for him. Not even one episode later, Ryan up and decides he needs to go to Thailand with his friends but not before they have sex one more time and he give her any cash she may have. It is later revealed that he never made it to Thailand but rather, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where he bleached his hair and got a very noticeable tan.
Ryan likes fads. He comments on different ones throughout the series, as he is always attempting to be the coolest person around. In season five, when he is once again hired to work at Dunder Mifflin after the negotiation between them and the Michael Scott Paper Company, he ends up going back to the temp position he was in at the beginning of the series due to budget cuts. He says in an interview that he can't seem to control anything in his life, except his food. He eats five small meals a day.
Around season six, Ryan starts to adopt a hipster persona, as another attempt to keep up with the trends of society. He adorns suspender, scarves, bow ties, and most notably, fake glasses. He also picked up photography as a hobby and takes pictures of Kelly topless, while trying to get Erin to do the same. Ryan suddenly starts to wear the glasses and they soon become a part of his down-spiraling character.
A lot of people in the office notice Ryan's prickish behavior and actually don't really like him all that much. Only Kelly and Michael seem to be blinded towards is utterly awful personality. Jim and Pam are probably the two that dislike him the most, as they feel he leeches off of people rather than start anything on his own. In one of the earlier episodes, Jim finds out that Ryan doesn't even have his own car but rather, drives his mom's Nissan Z, which he becomes pretty defensive about.
Ryan has many ambitions throughout the series, but they all revolve around somehow making it to the top. During "The Sting" (season 7, episode 5), Jim and Dwight try to trick Danny into believing that Ryan is the hot new executive since he is able to play that role so well.
Instead, Ryan tells them that his backstory for himself is that he runs Google. Of course, his plan of working for Google quickly backfires when Meredith pretends he is just the cleaning man.
Time and time again Ryan comes on to Erin. His flirtatious remarks often go over the new receptionist's head or are awkwardly cut so that fans don't know what happens after. When the pair went with a few other members of the office to Florida, he tells Erin that he would consider staying with her and implies that they should get together immediately. Once Erin says she would like that but only if they were friends for 6 months and then explored a relationship, to which Ryan responded with that he loved Kelly.
During the episode, "Shareholder Meeting" in season 6, Jim gets pretty fed up with Ryan as Ryan still seems to hold a judge for their past and refuses to listen to him, even though Jim is now his boss. While ignoring Jim's request to complete a task, Ryan can be seen tossing a ball while discussing Creed's love life. He asks Creed if he "Loves her, or loves the idea of her" while tossing the ball to which Creed responds "I don't know, man. I just don't know." Clearly, Creed and Ryan are friends as Ryan knows something about Creed's personal life, which is pretty rare considering just how mysterious Creed actually is.
Kelly and Ryan got married on a whim without telling anyone in the office. So when they began their announcement to the office, it started with Kelly showing off her new wedding ring (that no one had seen before) and tossing it to the ground. They got married a week prior while drunk, and after an amazing and beautiful weekend, Ryan decided he wanted a divorce. This confused everyone even more and the entire debacle was never mentioned again as the two remained dating.
