I see Ryan as youthful, whereas I see Bryan as an old man’s name. I was very surprised to hear a colleague mentioning her boyfriend is called Brian (he’s 18 yo?). Despite popularity in the eighties this is the only Brian I know of.
BrianBrian seems more classic than Ryan, which I’ve come to associate with dumb straight boys. (I was born in 1990 in the United States, so I grew up with a glut of indistinguishable Ryans.)