Well throwing out a hadoken, at safe ranges helps to try to get closer to your opponent. Tatsu eats projectile, and has some weird shield property it seems(?). Although it is unsafe on shield if you do it to close it's moderately safe if you do it at the end of the move, where it's at it's strongest. Focus attack dash cancel is great as it lets you take a hit and either dash in or away from the opponent.
Ryu can combo his specials from weak Utilt, Strong Utilt, weak Down tilt, Strong Downtilt, and jab 1. This means you can make yourself safer by cancelling moves with specials. Although I would try out all the moves to see what works best with what situation. This also means when you do catch up to your opponent you can do some solid damage from basic hits.
Ryu also has an amazing Fair and Nair. if you get the sourspots of Fair an Nair depending on percentages you could combo into things such as Usmash, Shoryuken, Another fair, Dair, Dsmash, Fsmash. All of these combos do 18+ damage and decent knockback.
Strong Ftilt is good for pressuring opponents who shield too much, even if it doesn't break their shield they have to fear it now. That will let you punish shields much better.
Usmash on shields is safe on most characters, the knockback is too much for most of the cast. Dsmash is a fast smash option that is only safe when you hit the tip of the attack so don't throw it out without thinking about spacing. Side smash is one of Ryu's unsafer smashes but if your opponent is rolling around a solid SSmash will connect.
