Ryan worked in the World Trade Center during the 1993 bombing. In that incident, a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower, killing six and injuring about a thousand.
"When I worked on the 1993 bombing, I spent so much time in the Trade Center that I made friendships with a lot of people who worked there…. And everyone that I knew died. It is terribly sad," Ryan admitted, speaking to Sputnik.
Yet he said that there were no similarities between the 9/11 attacks and the one in 1993.
"[in 1993] There was a structural damage but it was inside. In 27 days, it was over, we finished investigation, made arrests. It was very quick; the city went back to normal. With 9/11 I don’t think it will ever get back to normal again…. It was an international thing," he added.
In 2002, an independent commission to investigate the September 11 attacks (9/11 Commission) was created in the United States. In 2004, the commission issued a final report on the circumstances of the tragedy. One of the main findings of the 600-page document was the recognition that the perpetrators took advantage of "deep administrative failures" in the US government.
American families of victims of the September 11 attacks have long pushed the US government to declassify information related to the ties Saudi Arabia may have had to the terrorists who carried out the attacks.
Earlier in September, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order initiating an interagency review to possibly declassify certain documents related to the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States within six months. Biden said in a copy of the executive order that information related to the September 11 attacks should not remain classified when the public interest outweighs any damage to national security that might reasonably be expected from the disclosure of the classified documents.