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‘Especially in this nation, I think you needed me. You didn't comprehend it but you required me, to lift some of your own embarrassment.” The comedian, the forty-two-year-old Canadian humorist who has been based in the UK for close to 20 years, brought along her recently born fourth child. She removes her breast pumps so they avoid making an irritating sound. The initial impression you see is the remarkable capacity of this woman, who can project parental devotion while crafting logical sentences in complete phrases, and without getting distracted.

The second thing you notice is what she’s known for – a natural, unaffected ballsiness, a dismissal of artifice and duplicity. When she emerged in the UK stand-up scene in 2008, her challenge was that she was strikingly attractive and refused to act not to know it. “Attempting stylish or beautiful was seen as appealing to men,” she remembers of the early 2010s, “which was the opposite of what a comic would do. It was a norm to be humble. If you appeared in a elegant attire with your underwear and heels, like, ‘I think I’m gorgeous,’ that would be seen as really unappealing, but I did it because that’s what I enjoyed.”

Then there was her routines, which she summarises simply: “Women, especially, craved someone to appear and be like: ‘Hey, that’s OK. You can be a feminist and have a boob job and have been a bit of a party-goer for a while. You can be human as a mother, as a significant other and as a picker of men. You can be someone who is fearful of men, but is confident enough to mock them; you don’t have to be deferential to them the entire time.’”

‘If you took to the stage in your lingerie and heels, that would be seen as really off-putting’

The underlying theme to that is an emphasis on what’s real: if you have your child with you, you most likely have your breast pumps; if you have the profile of a youth, you’ve most likely undergone procedures; if you want to lose weight, well, there are medications for that. “I’m not on any yet, but I’ll think about them when I’ve stopped nursing,” she says. It addresses the heart of how feminism is conceived, which it strikes me remains largely unchanged in the past 50 years: empowerment means being attractive but not dwelling about it; being universally desired, but never chasing the attention of men; having an unshakeable sense of self which perish the thought you would ever alter cosmetically; and in addition to all that, women, especially, are meant to never think about money but nevertheless thrive under the demands of modern economic conditions. All of which is kept afloat by the majority of us pretending, most of the time.

“For a long time people reacted: ‘What? She just discusses things?’ But I’m not trying to be provocative all the time. My life events, behaviors and mistakes, they exist in this area between pride and embarrassment. It occurred, I share it, and maybe relief comes out of the punchlines. I love telling people secrets; I want people to share with me their private thoughts. I want to know mistakes people have made. I don’t know why I’m so keen for it, but I view it like a connection.”

Ryan was raised in Sarnia, Ontario, a place that was not especially affluent or metropolitan and had a active community theater theater scene. Her dad owned an industrial company, her mother was in IT, and they anticipated a lot of her because she was sparky, a high achiever. She wanted to escape from the age of about seven. “It was the kind of town where people are very content to live nearby to their parents and live there for a considerable period and have each other’s children. When I visit now, all these kids look really known to me, because I spent my childhood with both their parents.” But didn’t she marry her own teenage boyfriend? She traveled back to Sarnia, met again her former partner, who she saw as a teenager, and now – six years later – they have three children together, plus Violet, now 16, who Ryan had cared for until then as a lone parent. “Right,” says Ryan. “Sometimes I think there’s an alternate reality where I didn't make that, and it’s still just Violet and me, chic, worldly, flexible. But we cannot completely leave behind where we originated, it turns out.”

‘We are always connected to where we started’

She got away for a bit, aged 18, and moved to Toronto, which she loved. These were the time at the restaurant, which has been a further cause of debate, not just that she worked – and enjoyed working – in a establishment (except this is a inaccuracy: “You would be dismissed for being nude; you’re not allowed to take your shirt off”), but also for a bit in one of her performances where she discussed giving a manager a sexual favor in return for being allowed to go home early. It breached so many taboos – what even was that? Manipulation? Transaction? Predatory behavior? Unsisterliness (towards whoever it was who had to stay late so she could leave early)? Whatever it was, you definitely were not expected to joke about it.

Ryan was amazed that her anecdote caused controversy – she got on with the guy! She also wanted to go home early. But it revealed something wider: a deliberate rigidity around sex, a sense that the cost of the #MeToo movement was demonstrative purity. “I’ve always found this interesting, in debates about sex, permission and exploitation, the people who misinterpret the complexity of it. Therefore if this is abuse, why isn’t that abuse?” She references the comparison of certain comments to lyrics in popular music. “They said: ‘Well, how’s that distinct?’ I thought: ‘How is it alike?’”

She would not have relocated to London in 2008 had it not been for her romantic interest. “Everyone said: ‘Don’t go to London, they have rats there.’ And I found it difficult, because I was immediately broke.”

‘I was aware I had material’

She got a job in retail, was found to have a chronic illness, which can sometimes make it challenging to get pregnant, and at 23, chose to try to have a baby. “When you’re first informed about something – I was quite ill at the time – you go to the worst-case scenario. My logic with my boyfriend was, we’ve had so many issues, if we are still together by now, we never will. Now I see how extended life is, and how many things can transform. But at 23, I was unaware.” She was able to get pregnant and had Violet.

The next bit sounds as white-knuckle as a tense comedy film. While on parental leave, she would take care of Violet in the day and try to make her way in comedy in the evening, taking her daughter with her. She was aware from her sales job that she had no problem winning people over, and she had confidence in her sharp humor from her time at Hooters; more than that, she says bluntly, “I felt sure I had jokes.” The whole industry was shot through with discrimination – she won a notable comedy award in 2008, just over a year after she’d started performing, a prize that was established in the context of a ongoing debate about whether women could be funny