Missy Ryan is a reporter for The Washington Post who writes about national security, defence, and foreign policy. In 2023, she was named the Post’s Pentagon correspondent, following her stretch covering the State Department around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the US exit from Afghanistan. Before joining The Post in 2014, Ms Ryan was a Washington-based reporter for Reuters, covering military affairs and US foreign policy with a special focus on the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. She also worked as a foreign correspondent with Reuters in the Middle East and Latin America, reporting from Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Chile. Ms Ryan, who speaks Spanish and Arabic, earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School.