Kolkata Knight Riders captain Brendon McCullum struck an unbeaten 84 off 63 balls but was on the losing side as Ross Taylor steered his Bangalore Royal Challengers to victory in a bottom-of-the-table match at Johannesburg.
Taylor's 81 not out came off just 33 balls, including seven fours and five sixes as his side reached 176 for four off 19.2 overs.
Opener Ryder began the pursuit for Kolkata's 173 for four with 22 off 20 balls.
It was a welcome return to the field for Ryder, who missed selection for Bangalore's three previous games.
Ryder earned negative headlines this week after his manager revealed the troubled Wellingtonian had returned to drinking alcohol in South Africa following three months of sobriety.
It has been a disappointing tournament for the New Zealanders involved but today's match improved Taylor and McCullum's statistics considerably.
Taylor doubled his run tally to 164 at an average of 32.8 while McCullum has now scored 175 runs at 19.4 for his last-placed side, who have won just one game.
"It's nice to make runs but it breaks my heart when the team loses and today was not different," McCullum said.
"We had the game in the bag for most of it until Ross took it away from us."
With three games each remaining, Kolkata are out of contention for the semifinals and McCullum has come under increasing pressure from Indian media following a claim midway through the tournament that he would step down as skipper if his team kept losing.
In today's other match, the Mumbai Indians beat Kings 11 Punjab by eight wickets.
