Michael Joseph Ready (April 9, 1893 – May 2, 1957) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Columbus in Ohio from 1944 until his death.

The second youngest of 14 children, Michael Ready was born on April 9, 1893, in New Haven, Connecticut, to Michael T. and Mary A. (née Ellis) Ready. His parents were Irish immigrants who immigrated to the United States in the 1880s. In 1900, the Ready family relocated from Connecticut to Mansfield, Ohio, and later to Barberton, Ohio.

Ready studied at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, at St. Bernard Seminary in Rochester, New York, and at St. Mary Seminary in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ready was ordained to the priesthood in Cleveland for the Diocese of Cleveland by Bishop John Farrelly on September 14, 1918. He then served as an assistant pastor, teacher, and director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in the diocese. In 1931, he was named assistant general secretary of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, becoming its general secretary in 1936. The Vatican elevated Ready to the rank of monsignor in 1934. During his time in Washington, Ready became friends with sports writer Bob Considine, baptizing his son in 1939.

In 1939, Ready joined Bishops John Gannon and James Griffin in a visit to Mexico to confer with Archbishop Luis Martínez. They were discussing the founding of a seminary in Las Vegas, New Mexico, to supply priests for the Mexican Church, since seminaries were at that time illegal in that country. During the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, Ready denounced the Spanish government for its anti-clerical policies. In 1940, Ready expressed his opposition to military conscription in the United States, favoring volunteer recruiting

Ready delivered the benediction at the 1941 inauguration in Washington of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later that year, he met with Roosevelt after the latter made controversial remarks regarding the status of religious freedom in the Soviet Union.

In 1942, after the American entry into World War II in December 1941, Ready declared that "the liberty and institutions" of the United States were threatened by the same "rampant totalitarian military forces which harass the Church and all that the Church has built," in an implicit reference to the Japanese Empire. In 1944, Reverend Stanislaus Orlemanski visited the Soviet Union to meet Premier Joseph Stalin, who signed a document pledging support for religious freedom. Ready described the priest's trip as "a political burlesque...staged and directed by capable Soviet agents," saying, "What we need from Stalin is his declaration of full religious freedom in Russia, not his signature."

On November 11, 1944, Ready was appointed the fifth bishop of Columbus by Pope Pius XII. He received his episcopal consecration on December 14, 1944, from Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, with Archbishop John McNicholas and Bishop Edward Hoban serving as co-consecrators, at St. Matthew Cathedral in Washington, D.C. He was formally installed at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Columbus, Ohio, on January 4, 1945.