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‘Especially in this nation, I think you needed me. You weren't aware it but you required me, to remove some of your own embarrassment.” The comedian, the forty-two-year-old Canadian comic who has been based in the UK for almost 20 years, has brought her recently born fourth child. Ryan whips off her breast pumps so they avoid making an annoying sound. The first thing you observe is the incredible ability of this woman, who can radiate maternal love while articulating sequential thoughts in whole sentences, and remaining distracted.

The second thing you notice is what she’s famous for – a genuine, inherent fearlessness, a refusal of affectation and hypocrisy. When she emerged in the UK alternative comedy scene in 2008, her provocation was that she was strikingly attractive and made no attempt not to know it. “Aiming for stylish or attractive was seen as catering to male approval,” she remembers of the that period, “which was the opposite of what a comic 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 routines, which she summarises breezily: “Women, especially, craved someone to arrive and be like: ‘Hey, that’s OK. You can be a feminist and have a enhancement and have been a bit of a slag for a while. You can be imperfect as a mother, as a partner and as a selector of men. You can be someone who is fearful of men, but is self-assured enough to mock them; you don’t have to be deferential to them the entire time.’”

‘If you went on stage in your underwear and heels, that would be seen as really unappealing’

The consistent message to that is an focus on what’s authentic: if you have your baby with you, you most likely have your breast pumps; if you have the facial structure of a youth, you’ve most likely received treatments; if you want to lose weight, well, there are drugs for that. “I’m not on any yet, but I’ll consider them when I’ve stopped breastfeeding,” she says. It addresses the root of how women's liberation is viewed, which I believe remains largely unchanged in the past 50 years: liberation means being attractive but not dwelling about it; being constantly sought after, but avoiding the attention of men; having an unshakeable sense of self which God forbid you would ever surgically enhance; and coupled with all that, women, especially, are meant to never think about money but nevertheless prosper under the pressure of late capitalist conditions. All of which is kept afloat by the majority of us pretending, most of the time.

“For a long time people reacted: ‘What? She just speaks about things?’ But I’m not trying to be provocative all the time. My personal stories, choices and missteps, they reside in this realm between pride and regret. It happened, I share it, and maybe relief comes out of the jokes. I love sharing secrets; I want people to tell me their secrets. I want to know mistakes people have made. I don’t know why I’m so keen for it, but I feel it like a link.”

Ryan was raised in Sarnia, Ontario, a place that was not particularly wealthy or cosmopolitan and had a vibrant amateur dramatics theater scene. Her dad managed an technical company, her mother was in IT, and they anticipated a lot of her because she was sparky, a perfectionist. She dreamed of leaving from the age of about seven. “It was the type of place where people are very pleased to live nearby to their parents and stay there for a lifetime and have their friends' children. When I visit now, all these kids look really recognizable to me, because I was raised with both their parents.” But didn’t she marry her own high school sweetheart? She went back to Sarnia, reconnected with Bobby Kootstra, who she saw as a teenager, and now – six years later – they have three children together, plus Violet, now 16, who Ryan had cared for until then as a single mother. “Right,” says Ryan. “Sometimes I think there’s a different path where I haven’t done that, and it’s still just Violet and me, sophisticated, urban, portable. But we can’t fully escape where we came from, it appears.”

‘We are always connected to where we originated’

She got away 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 found it fun – in a establishment (except this is a myth: “You would be fired for being nude; you’re not allowed to be unclothed”), but also for a bit in one of her sets where she mentioned giving a manager a sexual favor in return for being allowed to go home early. It crossed so many red lines – what even was that? Abuse? Sex work? Unethical action? Betrayal (towards whoever it was who had to stay late so she could leave early)? Whatever it was, you absolutely weren’t supposed to joke about it.

Ryan was surprised that her fellatio sequence generated controversy – she was fond of the guy! She also wanted to go home early. But it revealed something larger: a strategic inflexibility around sex, a sense that the consequence of the #MeToo movement was performed purity. “I’ve always found this interesting, in debates about sex, permission and manipulation, the people who fail to grasp the complexity of it. Therefore if this is abuse, why isn’t that abuse?” She mentions the linking of certain remarks to lyrics in popular music. “Certain people said: ‘Well, how’s that dissimilar?’ I thought: ‘How is it similar?’”

She would not have relocated to London in 2008 had it not been for her then boyfriend. “Everyone said: ‘Don’t go to London, they have rats there.’ And I found it difficult, because I was suddenly broke.”

‘I was aware I had jokes’

She got a job in retail, was told she had an autoimmune condition, which can sometimes make it difficult to get pregnant, and at 23, chose to try to have a baby. “When you’re first informed about something – I was quite unwell at the time – you go to the darkest possibility. 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 extended life is, and how many things can transform. But at 23, I didn't realize.” She managed to get pregnant and had Violet.

The subsequent chapter sounds as nerve-wracking as a classic comedy film. While on maternity leave, she would care for Violet in the day and try to make her way in comedy in the evening, bringing her daughter with her. She felt from her sales job that she had no problem winning people over, and she had belief in her fast thinking from her time at Hooters; more than that, she says simply, “I was confident I had jokes.” 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 created in the context of a turgid debate about whether women could be funny