Meet Ryan
Delegate Ryan Spiegel represents District 17 (Gaithersburg and Rockville) in the Maryland House of Delegates. There, he serves on the influential Appropriations Committee.
From 2007 to 2023, Ryan was elected four times to serve on the Gaithersburg City Council and served as Council Vice President in 2012, 2015, and 2018. Ryan’s signature initiative, the Bank of Gaithersburg (now the Financial Empowerment Center), was established to promote financial stability for families while also boosting the local economy and reducing the strain on government. Greatly expanded to include tax prep assistance, credit counseling, and other services, the program celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2019. On the City Council, Ryan also championed smart economic growth, affordable housing, transportation infrastructure, police reform, and public safety.
In 2019, Ryan served as the President of the Maryland Municipal League where he shepherded the organization through the COVID pandemic, pivoting to virtual conferences, convening officials to coordinate crisis management, and appointing the most diverse team of committee leaders in the League’s history to continue the strong advocacy for Maryland’s municipalities. In 2018, Ryan served as Chair of the League’s Legislative Committee Chair during one of the most successful legislative advocacy years in the League’s history, in which cities and towns successfully defended local control while restoring critical funding for transportation.
Since 2021, Ryan has been a partner at the law firm of Thompson Hine, where he specializes in government contracting and civil litigation matters. He has earned several recognitions including being named a national Rising Star by Law 360 and a SuperLawyers Rising Star in Maryland and D.C. He has also spent hundreds of hours doing pro bono work on a variety of cases ranging from death penalty appeals, to protecting tenants from wrongful eviction, to seeking asylum for those who are persecuted for their political beliefs, to obtaining Holocaust reparations. Ryan has also served on the Board of Directors of the University of Maryland Hillel, YouthAchieve, Inc., and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
Ryan lives in the Washingtonian Woods neighborhood of Gaithersburg with his wife Rachael, a professional photographer, their children Jack and Dalia, and their dog Charlie. They are active members of Shaare Torah congregation.