In Ryanair forget swaps and anything that makes your social/family life easy. They pay you and consider that they own you. There are always exceptions - and somebody will inevitably come along and post to say that they work for Ryanair and never have had a problem. BUT if you talk to enough people and read enough posts here on PPRuNe you will get the message that:
- The roster you are given is hard to avoid. It can vary from intense work through to intense sitting at home (this is especially the lot of new pilots once they have paid FR for their type-rating, contibuted to company profits, and got checked out).
- Swops are next to impossible, if not impossible. Rosters for other pilots in most bases are impossible to obtain (company policy).
- You have very little control over your leave, with some notable and lucky exceptions (all the signs are that where P B is left to do his thing leave can actually be allocated rationally. However, the people actually in charge of leave and the Pol Pot management in Dublin are much more inclinded to give you leave when they think it would be best to (a) suit Ryanair, (b) punish you for asking to many questions about getting your leave).
- Plan on one month allocated unpaid leave per annum, along with your month's allocated "paid" (minus sector pay, of course). Be pleasantly surprises if you plan turned out to be too pessimistic.
Etc. etc.
Hope you get my drift!!
P.S. There is this guy called Leo Hairy Camel who roams about these parts. He comes with the territory and, so long as you can distinguish between reality and propaganda you will have no problem (hint - reality is based on facts and propaganda is based on spinning the facts).