Captain Robert Edward Dudley Ryder VC (16 February 1908 – 29 June 1986) was a Royal Navy officer and a British recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He became a Conservative Member of Parliament after retiring from the navy.

Ryder was born in India in 1908 to Colonel Charles Henry Dudley Ryder, Surveyor General of India, and Ida Josephine Grigg. He was a great-grandson of the Right Reverend Henry Ryder, youngest son of Nathaniel Ryder, 1st Baron Harrowby. Ryder had two brothers; both were killed in the Second World War. Lisle Charles Dudley Ryder was killed in the Le Paradis massacre of 1940 in France. Ernle Terrick Dudley Ryder died in captivity after the defence of Singapore. Ryder was educated at Hazelhurst School and Cheltenham College before he entered the Royal Navy in 1926.

Ryder served on several ships throughout his career. He served as a midshipman on the battleship HMS Ramillies from 1927 to 1929. As a lieutenant he served in the submarine HMS Olympus as part of the 4th Flotilla in China from 1930 to 1933. Ryder also commanded several expeditions. This included captaining the ketch Tai-Mo-Shan on a 16,217 mile voyage from Hong Kong to Dartmouth, England during 1933–1934. Investigative work by the Times of London in 2007 found that the voyage was more than a great yachting exploit. The young naval officers were spying on Imperial Japanese Navy anchorages in the Kurile Islands to survey the isles for potential Allied submarine bases for an attack on the Japanese Navy. That same base in the Kurile Islands was later used for the attack on Pearl Harbor. The yacht Tai-Mo-Shan was resold and repaired numerous times and later reached a wider audience when she starred in the box office hit Mama Mia in 2008.

From 1934 to 1937 he captained the schooner Penola during the British Graham Land Expedition in Antarctica.

When the Second World War started, Ryder was serving as a lieutenant commander on HMS Warspite. In 1940, he was promoted to commander of the Q-ship HMS Edgehill which was sunk on the 29th of June 1940, torpedoed three times by German submarine U51 in the Atlantic, 200 miles west of Ireland; Ryder was adrift for four days before rescue by an off course convoy. After his recovery in hospital, he was appointed commander of the sloop HMS Fleetwood. In early 1941, he went on to captain the Prince Philippe a cross-channel steamer converted to a Commando ship, which sank after a collision in the Firth of Clyde. Ryder, now a commander, led the St Nazaire Raid, codenamed Operation Chariot, on 28 March 1942. This was a successful operation to destroy the "Normandie Dock" in the German naval base in the town. The stated aim of the operation was to deny large German ships, particularly the German battleship Tirpitz, a base on the Atlantic coast. For his actions during this operation he was one of five people awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for valour of the British Empire.

The official citation:

The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the Victoria Cross for daring and valour in the attack on the German Naval Base at St. Nazaire, to:

Commander Robert Edward Dudley Ryder, Royal Navy.