Ryan's philosophy was based on the idea that man should not be restricted by 'petty morality'.
It generated enormous hype before launch, and has now gained one of the largest aggregate critical review scores ever according to Metacritic with 96 out of 100, coincidentally the same as Half-Life 2.
So there's a few interpretations of this quote.
This concept should not have a place in Rapture if all men are equal and there are no people that are better than others.
I think I saw a spoiler! At the end of the day, Rapture feels like a real city and Columbia feels more like an amusement park.
Both of these settings are among the best video games have to offer, but some nagging issues and lack of world consistency hurt Columbia in the end.