Ryder Lynn is a major character on the fourth and fifth seasons of Glee. He makes his first appearance in The Role You Were Born to Play, the fifth episode of Season Four, and is introduced as a student in his sophomore year at William McKinley High School. Finn notices something special about Ryder during football practice and manages to convince him to audition for the school's upcoming production of Grease, which is being co-directed by Finn Hudson himself, alongside Artie Abrams. Ryder earns the lead male role in the production, having been chosen by the directors over Jake Puckerman. After starring in the musical, he decides to join New Directions. After a fight with Jake (in Dynamic Duets) he finds out that he has dyslexia.
In the episode Feud, he begins to move on from his crush Marley Rose, and goes after an online love interest named Katie, whom he shares all his secrets and shows care towards, only to find out he is being catfished. In the season finale, All or Nothing, he pursues the catfisher, as he's tired of the games that are being played on him. The catfisher was then revealed to be Unique, which shakes their friendship, causing Ryder to threaten to quit Glee Club after Regionals. He returns to the Glee Club in Season Five, so their differences must have been resolved off-screen. In New Directions the Glee Club gets disbanded, which is why he is no longer a member of the New Directions.
In Homecoming, it is revealed that Sue transferred him to another school after the disbandment of the glee club. He is graduated from high school as of Dreams Come True.
Ryder was a recurring character in Season Four, but was promoted to regular in Season Five. He has been demoted for Season Six, and he returned in the series finale. He is portrayed by the winner of the second season of The Glee Project, Blake Jenner.
While Finn is searching among the football players for a boy to play the lead in the upcoming school musical Grease, Ryder's touchdown routine catches his eye. Finn next approaches Ryder during study hall, where Ryder shares that he's struggling with school. Finn claims that singing helped him improve his grades, which is why he invites Ryder to audition for the school musical. Ryder, saying he doesn't sing, is relucant at first, but decides to attend the audition after receiving a mediocre grade. At the audition he is tricked into singing Juke Box Hero with Finn, which Finn then says he considers his audition for the school musical. Jake observes Ryder introducing himself and flirting with Marley, which is why he himself auditions for the school musical. It is then agreed to have a call-back to determine the final role allocation, so Ryder, along with Marley, Jake, and Kitty, is invited to sing Born to Hand Jive. He is later revealed to have earned the male lead in the musical.
During rehearsals, it doesn't go unnoticed by Jake that Ryder has very little experience with fixing cars, which is what Finn declares is the central content of Grease. However, Finn manages to make Ryder get familiar with cars by getting him to sing Greased Lightning along with Mike and the New Directions Boys.
On the night of the first performance, Ryder finds Marley forcing herself to vomit in a toilet. She then shares her insecurities with him, whereupon Ryder encourages her to stop suffocating. Before they are about to go on stage, Ryder shields Marley from Kitty's insults, and they then share a kiss. Together they go through the first show of Grease.
Much to Jake's dismay, Ryder reveals that Marley has been going out with him since the school musical. This revelation evolves into mutual provocation at first, and then into a brawl, which has to be arbitrated by the glee-club. Ryder is then revealed to have joined during the next glee-club practice. For his first assignment, he and Jake are tasked with singing a duet to resolve their feud. However, this plan backfires when Ryder and Jake agree that singing a duet won't make them reconcile, and moreover start brawling again while singing Superman. Finn then tasks them with sharing their biggest fear, to help them understand each other more.
As Jake is about to reveal his biggest fear to Ryder, he attempts to do so by handing him a note on which he has written it down. Ryder rejects, however, and makes Jake tell him about his fear. Ryder later reluctantly reveals that he had made Jake tell him, since he himself can't read. Jake shares this newly gained knowledge with Finn, who takes Ryder to a specialist. Said specialist diagnoses him with dyslexia, which explains why Ryder had been struggling with school as much as he had. Out of gratitude, Ryder then gathers their friends to help save Jake from a pack of bullies. It becomes apparent that they now consider each other friends. Ryder then has to cancel his plans with Marley, since they interfer with an appointment with a special aids teacher to help his dyslexia.
Jake reveals that he has been going out with Marley ever since Ryder cancelled their plans, to which Ryder claims to be fine with, despite showing visible disappointment. Feeling that he owes Ryder something, Jake leaves the leading dance-part of the sectionals-choreography to him. When Ryder realizes that he is overstrained with the dancing, Jake reveals being the better dancer of the two, along with his motives for not claiming the dance-part for himself. He also agrees to help Ryder practice. However, shortly before going onto stage at Sectionals, Ryder comes to the conclusion that the glee-club has better chances of winning if Jake leads the chorepgraphy, and thus they agree last-minute to let Jake
Althought cheerleader Jordan Stern approaches him several times during the episode, Ryder never gets asked out to the sadie-hawkins dance, and thus attends without a date. While he is singing I Only Have Eyes For You for a slow dance, he unhappily watches Jake dance with Marley as they establish their relationship.
He happily agrees to model for the "Men of McKinley"-calender, where Tina assigns him to pose for the months February and July. He subsequently attends all the training units organized by Sam to help them get in shape. He also privately trains with Jake in the locker-room. After getting interrupted by Kitty and Tina while comparing their bodies, Jake shares how eager he is to commit to his relationship with Marley. Realizing he is upsetting Ryder with this confession, he apologizes, and shows sympathy. Ryder admits to still having feelings for Marley, yet gives Jake advice on how to deal with his relationship struggles.
Jake wants to surprise Marley with a lot of presents for Valentine's Day. However, as he lacks the creativity to think of gift-ideas himself, he instead resorts to Ryder, who, contrary to his own feelings, helps him choose presents and set up a romantic performance.
Marley, however, sees through this, and realizes that Ryder must have helped Jake prepare all these gifts. They share a kiss as she is about to
Jake takes Marley to a pottery room, where he confesses that Ryder had helped him select the gifts she'd gotten for Valentine's Day. He then begins serenading her with Unchained Melody. However, during the performance, Marley repeatedly imagines that Ryder is singing to her, and not Jake. After ake finishes the song, Marley, overcome with guilt, confesses that she knew Ryder had selected the gifts, and that he had kissed her when she approached him about it, causing Jake to furiously leave the room.
During one glee-club lessons, Ryder receives the praise from Will that he had denied Finn, in an effort to get revenge on his former student.
Also, after hearing from Marley that Ryder had kissed her, Unique tries to make him stop meddling with Jake and Marley's relationship. However, when Ryder casually revers to Unique as a boy, she also demands that he refer to her as female. As Ryder refuses, she pushes him. Ryder later discusses this incident with an acquaintance named "Katie" that he had made online. Not being aware of having acted wrong towards Unique, he is adviced by Katie to resolve the conflict by singing with her, since it is feud-week in glee-club. Ryder and Unique agree to sing The Bitch Is Back/Dress You Up for that matter. Afterwards, they seem eager to make up, but when Ryder refuses to say that he thinks Unique is a girl, she leaves the choir-room visibly hurt. Ryder turns to "Katie" to discuss his confusion regarding Unique with her. "Katie" tells him, that even if he doesn't understand her, it would be right to respect what Unique thinks is true for herself. During a gathering of the glee-club underclassmen, he then approaches Unique to apologize to her, and also Jake to apologize for kissing Marley. At the end of the episodes, he admits to "Katie" that he feels as if he has moved on from Marley. It had become apparent towards the episode, that he seems to be devloping feelings for "katie" instead. He asks "Katie" if they could meet in person, but "katie" simply logs off without replying.
Thinking he recognizes "Katie" from the pictures she had said depict her, Ryder leads a girl at school into the empty choir-room, where he serenades her with Your Song. In the subsequent conversation, however, it becomes clear that the girl he had just serenaded is not the same person he had been chatting with. Both, Ryder and the girl, conclude that someone had taken pictures of her to catfish him.
He immediately suspects Jake or Marley to be behind the cat-fishing, but they both deny any claims. "katie" then comes forward again to apologize, and arranges to meet and explain her reasoning for catfishing him if he meets up with her the following day.
During the shooting, Ryder calls "Katie"'s number, in an attempt to make potentially last amends with her. He is surprised to then hear a phone ringing inside the choir-room, to which he concludes that "Katie" must be in glee-club with him. When Ryder meets up at the time "Katie" had arranged with him, he is disappointed when it becomes clear that he is being stood up.
As the glee-club is tasked with singing songs unplugged during practice, Ryder decides to "unplug his feelings" in addition to singing a song unplugged. After providing a rendition of Everybody Hurts, he then reveals how he was molested by his babysitter when he was eleven years old, an experience that he claims makes him more vulnerabe than his dyslexia. However, when Artie and Sam fail to show sympathy and rather suggest he should have enjoyed being molested, he backs down and leaves. Kitty, however, does shows a lot of empathy, and takes him out to eat at BreadstiX. There she opens up about how her former friend's brother had molested her, and how nobody had wanted to believe her, ultimately making Kitty transfer schools.
Kitty later asks Ryder to date him. Ryder, however, who is still chatting with his catfisher, rejects her in favour of "Katie". This earns him criticism from Kitty, who claims that Katie is only a projection, and that Ryder is getting hung up on a fantasy. Meanwhile, Ryder explains to his catfisher, that, although to no avail, he had told the glee-club about his molesting to provoke a reaction from "Katie", implying Ryder shared his molesting with them. When the catfisher then wants to know why Ryder is still talking to them, he explains how his revelation in glee-club proves that "Katie" has made him less barred, and that he's grateful for that despite the lying.
After chatting and texting with "Katie" for several weeks, he finally reaches his breaking point while the New Directions are discussing their setlist for Regionals. He threatens to quit the glee-club, which would leave the New Directions a member short, if his catfisher doesn't reveal who he is in person. He becomes aggressive when nobody comes clear, and requests that they pull out their phones so that he can call his catfisher. As the tension increases, and Ryder becomes more and more aggressive, Marley gets up to take the blame on her. Ryder, full of disbelief and disappointment, then quits the glee-club.
As Marley attempts to persuade Ryder into re-joining, he pressures her for an explanation for what she did. Unwilling to let her friend take the blame for something she didn't do, Unique then reveals herself as the true catfish. She trys to explain that she liked him, but was afraid that he wouldn't like her back, and thus created the catfishing account, but would understand that Ryder would want to beat her. Ryder explains that he won't beat Unique, but will also not talk to her ever again. Ryder eventually shows up at Regionals to say that he will not quit until after the competition, since he wouldn't want to punish the whole club when he's really only mad at one member. However, after the victory for the New Directions is announced, they share a hug, indicatign that the hard feelings might have vanished.
Personality
Ryder appears to be a very polite and well-mannered guy, who will try to befriend other people and also try to help them if he feels they need it. However, Coach Beiste describes him as a loner during his first appearance. This may be partly due to having been molested as child, since Ryder himself mentions having difficulties with opening himself up to others as a result of that incident. Also, this lack of trust seems to make him struggle with feelings of resentment, like when he forgot about manners in All or Nothing and began kicking tables.
He seems to have particular trouble in trusting girls, since he choose commiting to a girl he only knew from the internet. However, it appears that once Ryder manages to trust a girl, he acts really affectionate towards her, like when he prepared an elaborate performance for Marissa in Shooting Star, and prepared instagram images for Marley in Movin' Out.
One of his biggest problems that is introduced right along with him are his struggles with school. He explains that he is being pressured by his parents to get good grades at school, yet seems to be unable to do so, despite studying hard. When Ryder began questioning his intelligence, it is revealed that his grades are merely a result of him having dyslexia. The doctor who diagnosed him actually thinks he is rather intelligent. Despite still making frequent spelling mistakes, he mentions getting better grades since beginning his dyslexia training.
Ryder also plays for the school's football team, although Beiste refers to him as a bad player. However, it are Ryder's dancing moves that initially bring him to Finn's attention, and he is also showing to be lifting weights in Naked, which indicates that Ryder is overall athletic.
Relationships
Ryder introduces himself to Marley in The Role You Were Born to Play, after he learns that they had both auditioned for the school musical. Together they are cast as the lead roles, Danny and Sandy. Before the premiere, Ryder gets Marley to stop vomiting, and they share a kiss. They are revealed to be going out in Dynamic Duets. However, after Ryder has to cancel a date to see a dyslexia specialist, Marley goes out with Jake instead, and they become a couple. Although Ryder frequently helps Jake do the right things in his relationship, Ryder is shown to still have feelings for Marley, which makes him give her one more kiss in I Do. Soon after, he finds a new love interest in an online acquaintance, to whom he claims that he is moving on from Marley.
After Jake and Marley break up, Ryder reproaches Jake for hurting Marley. He then asks Marley out himself. Although Marley is relucant at first, Ryder manages to convince her that he'd never hurt her the way Jake did, and she agrees to go on a date with him. after said date, Ryder sees them as a couple, but Marley disagrees, and tells him that she needs more alone-time. After that, Ryder seems to have decided to stop pursuing Marley, and treats her as a friend.
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