Jimmy Ryan started his musical career in the mid-sixties as lead guitarist, vocalist and co-songwriter with The Critters. The band began as a high school project and ended up a national phenomenon with three top hits, “Younger Girl,” “Mr. Dieingly Sad,” and “Don’t Let The Rain Fall Down on Me” which Jimmy penned, as well as several chart records including, “Marrying Kind of Love,” “Bad Misunderstanding,” and “Touch & Go.” When the Critters split up in 1969 with the Viet Nam war and the service calling in all but two of its members, Jimmy continued his career as lead guitarist, backup vocalist, often arranger, and occasional co-writer with Carly Simon, recording such hits as “Anticipation,” “You're So Vain,” the Academy Award winning song, “Let The River Run” and many more. He has performed with Carly in two HBO specials “Live From Martha’s Vineyard,” and “My Romance” and played on the Carly Simon soundtracks and songs from the movies, “Working Girl,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Postcards From the Edge”, “This is My Life,” “Little Black Book,” and “The Falcon & The Snowman” earning one platinum and four gold records. Jimmy has also recorded albums with many other artists, most notably Cat Stevens and Jim Croce, receiving a gold record for each, as well as recording with Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, John Entwhistle, Jim Webb, Elton John and Kiki Dee.

Currently, when not performing with “The Hit Men,” Jimmy composes music for film and TV under his alter ego’s name, James Ryan. To date, he has scored thirty-eight films for theater and TV, including “My Sergei,” “Brothers On Holy Ground,” “Night Shade Passing,” “Searching For Wallenberg” and many others. He scored two award-winning Documentaries for NBC, “History of NBC News,” and “This Is NBC,” as well as a film for CBS, “My Sergei,” music for the Winter Olympics and the theme for the Paralympics in Sydney, Australia. He has composed music for USA Network, Discovery Channel, CNBC, APT, PBS, ESPN, Lifetime TV, WE TV, A&E, Showtime, Comedy Central, Food Network, Yes Network, The History Channel, and NOVA Science as well as music for hundreds of commercials. He has also composed and produced music for major TV News programs, including the currently running themes and bumpers for CNBC, and various local NBC News, CBS News, Telemundo Noticerio and ABC News programs. The Smithsonian Institution is currently featuring two films that Jimmy scored, “Deep Ocean Explorers” and “Messages From The Graves,” and Independence Hall is currently featuring Jimmy’s music in their introductory presentation of “The Liberty Bell.” At the time of this writing, Jimmy is scoring the music for a new Discovery Science series, “Deadly Descent.”