Now then, I know nothing of how and why Ryanair load their baggage into the forward hold of the Boeing 737-800 but I can tell you a story about loading DC-10s.
The horizontal stabiliser (tailplane) of the DC-10 has the same span as the wingspan of the DC-3. It was found that if the baggage was loaded from the rear first then the stabiliser took up a much more efficient angle in the cruise and this would save around 1 tonne of fuel on an average London to LAX sector.
From the ground handling point of view this was a pain in the ar*e for the aft baggage compartment was a bulk loading compartment and held around 300+ bags.
The other two compartments took LD3 or LD6 containers.
So, one day I was going to LAX and discovered that all of the baggage had been container-loaded and that the rear compartment was empty. Sure enough, we burned an extra tonne of fuel.
When I got back to Gatwick I went to see Fred Laker in person to tell him that we were wasting fuel. The problem was that we were arriving in LAX at about the same time as BA and their punters were getting their baggage a lot quicker than the Laker passengers simply because the LAX baggage loaders didn't exactly relish emptying the rear compartment of a DC-10 one bag at a time (can't say I blame them).
Therefore this was a commercial decision and I suspect the Ryanair situation is just that.