The RYAN occurrence is located on southeast-facing valley sides, northwest of Finlay River, and south of Nub Mountain, approximately 112 kilometres northwest of the community of Tsay Keh Dene at the north end of Williston Lake.

The Ryan area is underlain by volcanics and derived sediments of the Lower Jurassic Toodoggone Formation (Duncan-Metsantan Member). These are intruded by multiphase granodiorite and quartz monzonite plutons of the Early Jurassic Black Lake Plutonic Suite and Triassic Fin Monzogranite, cut by feldspar-hornblende-biotite +/-quartz phyric dikes. Minor roof pendants of Takla Group basalt also underlie the area.

Outcrop in the Ryan Creek area is comprised of intensely sheared, quartz-sericite-pyrite altered granodiorite to quartz monzonite of the Black Lake Plutonic Suite, with 1 to 10 per cent pyrite and trace chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena, and molybdenite and associated weakly anomalous levels of copper, zinc, silver, and gold values. Soil geochemical and induced polarization anomalies add to the prospect and may represent a porphyry copper hydrothermal system approximately 1.5 by 3.5 kilometres in dimension.

Prospecting in 2003 discovered mineralized outcrop in Ryan Creek. Stealth Minerals conducted soil geochemistry and geophysics over the whole area, which established a mineralized area 1000 metres north-south and 4000 metres east-west, essentially connecting the Pine North (094E 252) and Ryan Creek mineralized zones. Geophysics also identified two areas within this large-scale zone with high values which were the initial locations for drilling in 2005. Diamond-drill holes DH RC05-01 to RC05-04 are located 200 to 350 metres southwest of Ryan Creek (Assessment Report 28071).

Ryan Creek drilling had significant zinc values in all four holes which suggests that the drillholes were on the periphery of a porphyry deposit. A porphyry target was postulated as existing closer to the Pine North (094E 252) target area where there is a high induced polarization anomaly. Sphalerite appears in all four holes and was found to occur along fractures often with quartz and calcite and occurs in greater quantities than chalcopyrite or molybdenite. Drillhole C05-03 yielded 0.05 per cent copper and 0.12 per cent zinc over 20 metres (104 to 124 metres); a zone where the quartz monzonite host rock is clay gouged and pyrite plus chalcopyrite veins are up to 2 centimetres wide (Assessment Report 28071).

During the 2006 field season, Cascadero Copper Corp. completed a 49-sample mobile metal ion geochemical sampling program between Ryan Creek to the western edge of the Pine North prospect, a distance of 2.4 kilometres.

In 2007, a small helicopter-supported drilling program was employed to test a mobile metal ion soil anomaly in Pine North (Assessment Report 30200). The Ryan prospect, identified by Stealth Minerals Ltd. prospecting in 2003 and drilled in 2005, was interpreted as the zinc-rich periphery of a porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit centred some 2 kilometres to the northeast at Pine North.

Amarc Resources Ltd. consolidated the Joy Project mineral tenure through a series of agreements concluded between 2017 and 2019, including the Ryan occurrence area. In 2019, Amarc gained a one-hundred per cent interest in the Pine property under agreements with Gold Fields and previously Cascadero (Press Release, Amarc Resources Ltd., Dec. 19. 2019).

From 2016 to 2024, Amarc completed exploration programs of historical core logging at Pine, Mex (094E 057) and Fin (094E 312), induced polarization and airborne magnetic surveys, prospecting, mapping, geochemical soil and rock sampling and diamond drilling over their Joy property, including the Ryan, which is referred to as part of their North Finlay target area. Their North Finlay target area is part of a northwest-trending, 6 km long and up to 1.5 km wide zone of sericitic, sulphide-bearing propylitic, and local advanced argillic alteration which straddles the Triassic-Jurassic unconformity and is associated with a dike swarm and the Black Fault zone.

In 2022, Amarc drilled 3 holes totaling 687 metres in the North Finlay target area. Hole JP22033, collared approximately 1 kilometre west-southwest of the Ryan occurrence, intersected 21 metres of 0.11 gram per tonne gold and 0.4 gram per tonne silver (Assessment Report 40912). The 2023 exploration program had the goal of identifying and refining porphyry copper-gold deposit targets occurring in several previously identified target areas across the JOY project (Assessment Report 41856).

See Sickle (094E 237) and Pine (094E 016) for further details and work history of the Pine/Joy property.