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‘Especially in this country, I feel you required me. You didn't comprehend it but you required me, to remove some of your own shame.” The performer, the forty-two-year-old Canadian comic who has made her home in the UK for almost 20 years, was accompanied by her recently born fourth child. She takes off her breast pumps so they won't create an distracting sound. The primary observation you notice is the incredible ability of this woman, who can radiate parental devotion while crafting sequential thoughts in complete phrases, and never get distracted.

The second thing you observe is what she’s famous for – a genuine, inherent fearlessness, a dismissal of artifice and duplicity. When she sprang on to the UK comedy scene in 2008, her statement was that she was exceptionally beautiful and didn’t pretend not to know it. “Aiming for stylish or attractive was seen as appealing to men,” she recalls of the that period, “which was the opposite of what a comedian would do. It was a norm to be self-deprecating. If you went on stage in a elegant attire with your little push-up bra and heels, like, ‘I think I’m stunning,’ that would be seen as really alienating, but I did it because that’s what I wanted.”

Then there was her comedy, which she explains breezily: “Women, especially, craved someone to arrive and be like: ‘Hey, that’s OK. You can be a advocate for equality and have a boob job and have been a bit of a promiscuous person for a while. You can be flawed as a parent, as a partner and as a selector of men. You can be someone who is wary of men, but is bold enough to criticize them; you don’t have to be deferential to them the entire time.’”

‘If you went on stage in your little push-up bra and heels, that would be seen as really off-putting’

The consistent message to that is an focus on what’s real: if you have your infant with you, you most likely have your feeding equipment; if you have the jawline of a youth, you’ve most likely undergone procedures; if you want to reduce, well, there are treatments for that. “I’m not on any yet, but I’ll consider them when I’ve stopped nursing,” she says. It gets to the root of how female emancipation is viewed, which it strikes me hasn’t really changed in the past 50 years: empowerment means looking great but without ever thinking about it; being constantly sought after, but avoiding the attention of men; having an solid sense of self which heaven forbid you would ever surgically enhance; and coupled with all that, women, especially, are expected to never think about money but nevertheless succeed under the demands of late capitalist conditions. All of which is sustained by the majority of us bullshitting, most of the time.

“For a considerable period people said: ‘What? She just discusses things?’ But I’m not trying to be controversial all the time. My life events, actions and errors, they exist in this area between satisfaction and regret. It occurred, I discuss it, and maybe relief comes out of the jokes. I love telling people private thoughts; I want people to tell me their secrets. I want to know errors people have made. I don’t know why I’m so eager for it, but I view it like a link.”

Ryan was raised in Sarnia, Ontario, a place that was not particularly prosperous or urban and had a vibrant community theater arts 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 dreamed of leaving from the age of about seven. “It was the sort of community where people are very happy to live nearby to their parents and remain there for a considerable period and have one another's children. When I visit now, all these kids look really recognizable to me, because I spent my childhood with both their parents.” But isn't it true she partnered with her own teenage boyfriend? She returned to Sarnia, reconnected with her former partner, who she dated as a teenager, and now – six years later – they have three children together, plus Violet, now 16, who Ryan had raised until then as a lone parent. “Right,” says Ryan. “Sometimes I think there’s another life where I haven’t done that, and it’s still just Violet and me, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, flexible. But we can’t fully escape where we started, it turns out.”

‘We cannot completely leave behind where we originated’

She managed to leave for a bit, aged 18, and moved to Toronto, which she enjoyed. These were the time at the restaurant, which has been another source of debate, not just that she worked – and enjoyed working – in a establishment (except this is a myth: “You would be dismissed for being nude; you’re not allowed to remove your top”), but also for a bit in one of her sets where she discussed giving a manager a blowjob in return for being allowed to go home early. It crossed so many red lines – what even was that? Manipulation? Sex work? Inappropriate conduct? Unsisterliness (towards whoever it was who had to stay late so she could leave early)? Whatever it was, you absolutely were not expected to joke about it.

Ryan was shocked that her story caused controversy – she was fond of the guy! She also wanted to go home early. But it cracked open something larger: a calculated rigidity around sex, a sense that the cost of the #MeToo movement was outward purity. “I’ve always found this interesting, in discussions about sex, agreement and abuse, the people who fail to grasp the subtlety of it. Therefore if this is abuse, why isn’t that abuse?” She references the comparison of certain statements to lyrics in popular music. “Some individuals said: ‘Well, how’s that dissimilar?’ I thought: ‘How is it alike?’”

She would never have moved to London in 2008 had it not been for her partner at the time. “Everyone said: ‘Don’t go to London, they have vermin there.’ And I disliked it, because I was suddenly broke.”

‘I felt confident I had material’

She got a job in business, was diagnosed lupus, which can sometimes make it challenging to get pregnant, and at 23, chose to try to have a baby. “When you’re first told you have something – I was quite sick at the time – you go to the worst-case scenario. My rationale with my boyfriend was, we’ve had so many problems, if we haven't separated by now, we never will. Now I see how lengthy life is, and how many things can change. But at 23, I didn't realize.” She succeeded in get pregnant and had Violet.

The following period sounds as high-pressure as a chaotic comedy film. While on time off, she would take care of Violet in the day and try to enter comedy in the evening, bringing her daughter with her. She was aware from her sales job that she had no problem persuading others, and she had confidence in her fast thinking from her time at Hooters; more than that, she says bluntly, “I knew I had material.” The whole circuit was permeated with sexism – she won a major comedy award in 2008, just over a year after she’d started performing, a prize that was conceived in the context of a turgid debate about whether women could be funny