At 26 years and 266 days, the goalkeeper made history to become the youngest ever player to hit the half centry mark for Australia.

Ryan made his debut against North Korea in 2012, played in all six games of the 2014 Brazil and 2018 Russia World Cup campaigns, and helped the Socceroos win the 2015 Asian Cup.

The Brighton star has kept 14 clean sheets for the Socceroos, ranking him third on Australia’s all-time clean sheets list. The Sydneysider's appearance against Oman in Dubai on Sunday was his 50th cap.

"Without trying to sound cliché my dream came true [with] the first cap that I received so long ago and now to think that I have reached fifty is a little surreal to be honest," he said.

"But I am very honoured and very proud of the achievement and any time that you are fortunate enough to represent our country it is something that means a lot to me and is a very special moment. To have made that mark will be something that I will remember.

"I am going to be doing my best to try and contribute to whichever team I am representing for as long as my mind and body is willing and able to.

"Life has a funny way of working out sometimes and you never know what is around the corner, so I will be doing my best to keep myself physically and mentally fresh enough to try and make my 51st appearance as a Socceroo.

"I can’t wait for this tournament to get underway."

The Socceroos head into the Asian Cup undefeated in their past four matches under new boss Graham Arnold, with three wins and a draw against Asian opposition. They have also conceded just one goal during that run.

"I think the progress is continuing to be shown in the game that we are playing," Ryan said.

"To go out and beat a team with that scoreline, it takes some doing to go ahead and do that. Moving forward each day we have to take advantage of each and every opportunity that we have to get ourselves as best prepared as we can for this tournament to be as successful as we can.

"There are still some things that we can fine tune and work on to help bring those performances that we are going to need and make us that unit that is going to go on and be successful in this tournament."

Mark Schwarzer is the most capped Socceroo of all-time with 109 appearances, followed by Tim Cahill with 108 and Lucas Neill with 96.

Ryan broke into professional football at the age of 18 with Central Coast Mariners and has already had spells playing in Belgium, Spain and now England.

"I am thoroughly enjoying my football," the keeper said.

"When you get to do it at the level that I am currently at I guess it makes all the dedication and sacrifices worth it. I am just going in day in day out to do my absolute best to do what’s required to do well at that level.

"I guess it’s a bit unknown in terms of what’s in front of me [but] I am learning from every experience."