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‘Especially in this nation, I think you needed me. You didn’t realise it but you craved me, to alleviate some of your own guilt.” The performer, the 42-year-old Canadian humorist who has been based in the UK for almost 20 years, has brought her recently born fourth child. She takes off her breast pumps so they won't create an irritating sound. The initial impression you see is the incredible ability of this woman, who can project parental devotion while articulating coherent ideas in whole sentences, and never get distracted.

The second thing you notice is what she’s renowned for – a genuine, inherent fearlessness, a rejection of affectation and duplicity. When she emerged in the UK comedy scene in 2008, her provocation was that she was strikingly attractive and made no attempt not to know it. “Attempting glamorous or pretty was seen as appealing to men,” she states of the that period, “which was the reverse of what a comic would do. It was a fashion to be self-deprecating. If you appeared in a stylish dress with your underwear and heels, like, ‘I think I’m stunning,’ that would be seen as really off-putting, but I did it because that’s what I enjoyed.”

Then there was her material, which she explains casually: “Women, especially, craved someone to appear and be like: ‘Hey, that’s OK. You can be a feminist and have a boob job and have been a bit of a slag for a while. You can be flawed as a mother, as a spouse and as a picker of men. You can be someone who is fearful of men, but is confident enough to mock them; you don’t have to be nice to them the whole time.’”

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

The consistent message to that is an insistence on what’s authentic: if you have your infant with you, you most likely have your breast pumps; if you have the jawline of a youngster, you’ve most likely undergone procedures; if you want to slim down, well, there are drugs for that. “I’m not on any yet, but I’ll look into them when I’ve stopped nursing,” she says. It gets to the root of how women's liberation is conceived, which it strikes me hasn’t really changed in the past 50 years: freedom means appearing beautiful but without ever thinking about it; being widely admired, but never chasing the male gaze; having an unshakeable sense of self which perish the thought you would ever alter cosmetically; and in addition to all that, women, especially, are meant to never think about money but nevertheless thrive under the demands of late capitalist conditions. All of which is sustained by the majority of us bullshitting, most of the time.

“For a long time people went: ‘What? She just speaks about things?’ But I’m not trying to be controversial all the time. My experiences, actions and errors, they live in this space between pride and embarrassment. It took place, I share it, and maybe reprieve comes out of the punchlines. I love telling people confessions; I want people to share with me their private thoughts. I want to know missteps people have made. I don’t know why I’m so thirsty for it, but I view it like a connection.”

Ryan spent her childhood in Sarnia, Ontario, a place that was not especially prosperous or urban and had a vibrant community theater theater scene. Her dad managed an engineering company, her mother was in IT, and they demanded a lot of her because she was bright, a high achiever. She longed to get out from the age of about seven. “It was the type of place where people are very pleased to live next door to their parents and live there for a considerable period and have each other’s children. When I visit now, all these kids look really known to me, because I spent my childhood with both their parents.” But isn't it true she partnered with her own high school sweetheart? She traveled back to Sarnia, met again an old flame, who she went out with 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 single mother. “Right,” says Ryan. “Sometimes I think there’s an alternate reality where I haven’t done that, and it’s still just Violet and me, sophisticated, urban, flexible. But we are always connected to where we originated, it appears.”

‘We are always connected to where we originated’

She got away for a bit, aged 18, and moved to Toronto, which she adored. These were the period working there, which has been another source of discussion, not just that she worked – and enjoyed working – in a topless bar (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 performances where she discussed giving a manager a blowjob in return for being allowed to go home early. It breached so many red lines – what even was that? Exploitation? Prostitution? Inappropriate conduct? Lack of solidarity (towards whoever it was who had to stay late so she could leave early)? Whatever it was, you definitely were not expected to joke about it.

Ryan was amazed that her fellatio sequence generated anger – she liked the guy! She also wanted to go home early. But it cracked open something broader: a strategic rigidity around sex, a sense that the price of the #MeToo movement was performed purity. “I’ve always found this notable, in arguments about sex, agreement and manipulation, the people who misinterpret the nuance of it. Therefore if this is abuse, why isn’t that abuse?” She mentions the comparison of certain remarks to lyrics in popular music. “Some individuals said: ‘Well, how’s that different?’ I thought: ‘How is it comparable?’”

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

‘I felt confident I had material’

She got a job in sales, was found to have a chronic illness, which can sometimes make it hard 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 issues, 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 was unaware.” She succeeded in get pregnant and had Violet.

The following period sounds as high-pressure as a tense comedy film. While on maternity leave, she would take care of Violet in the day and try to enter standup in the evening, bringing her daughter with her. She knew from her sales job that she had no problem being convincing, and she had belief in her fast thinking from her time at Hooters; more than that, she says bluntly, “I knew I had material.” The whole circuit was riddled with discrimination – she won a prestigious comedy award in 2008, just over a year after she’d started performing, a prize that was established in the context of a ongoing debate about whether women could be funny