Milk is remembered today, Ryan is not. That's because the media created some modern day myth about Harvey Milk as a martyred gay icon who died for the "cause" of gay rights.
It's the same reason why everyone remembers the 1963 assassination of JFK, but nobody remembers the 1964 assassination of Sam Cooke (who was a world famous singer known as the "King of Soul" at the time of his death)
JFK has a cult of personality that makes him out to be some kind of beloved heroic figure, and creates the myth that the establishment took him out to prevent him from saving America.
In the elevation of Milk to sainthood, it was Mayor George Moscone who is now forgotten (along with Leo Ryan). It was Milk’s pettiness against Dan White that precipitated the entire affair. Moscone was all prepared to rescind White’s resignation, but Milk persuaded him to leave White out in the cold. Of course, Dianne Feinstein owes her elevation to power entirely on Dan White’s trigger finger (and Milk’s vindictiveness).
Of course, not that changing the outcome of any of that would’ve stopped San Francisco’s downward spiral.
As for Sam Cooke, having read some brief accounts of his strange death, I got the impression he himself may have been a sex predator, which ultimately got him killed when he flipped out on the motel operator lady who shot him.
That’s always the problem with these celebrities and politicians. As much as you may admire them one way or another, how talented and smooth and charismatic they are, in private, they may be just awful people. All this fawning over a certain Senator, and they forget he shamefully abandoned his family for wife #2 and the power and prestige it brought him because of the father-in-law. Notice you NEVER hear about the first wife or the kids she raised in his absence, only the two “newer” kids (the one with Cindy and the adopted one). Can’t let the truth get in the way of the media narrative.