While he remains under federal investigation for his role in the prosecution of Cleveland autoworker John Demjanjuk as the Nazi death camp guard Ivan the Terrible, University Attorney Allan A. Ryan will not be called to testify before the judge conducting the probe until next year.

Ed Nishnic, Demjanjuk's son-in-law, confirmed this week that Judge Tom Wiseman will not hold a two-day hearing previously scheduled to begin December 21 in Nashville.

Court officials and attorneys familiar with the case said last month that they expected Ryan, a former director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, to testify at that hearing.

Nishnic, who is coordinating the effort to clear his father-in-law's name, said Demjanjuk's attorneys had wanted to delay Ryan's testimony because they want more time to pre- pare. Nishnic said Ryan, who wrote a book aboutthe Justice Department's prosecution of allegedNazi war criminals, may be the most importantwitness of the proceeding.

"These people [Justice prosecutors ofDemjanjuk] worked under the direction of AllanRyan," said Nishnic. "We expect to thoroughlyexamine Mr. Ryan, and we think we will do thatprobably by early February."

Demjanjuk was convicted and extradited toIsrael in 1986, where he sits on death row.Demjanjuk's attorneys have alleged that Ryan andother justice officials suppressed evidence thatsuggested that one Ivan Marcenko, and notDemjanjuk, was the real Ivan the Terrible.

The federal investigation was prompted byappeals from Demjanjuk's lawyers and new evidencefrom records of the former Soviet Union indicatingDemjanjuk was not the infamous "Ivan the Terrible"guard of the Treblinka death camp. Instead, Sovietlists showed that Demjanjuk was a guard at theSobibor camp.

Ryan has refused to comment on the case on thegrounds that it has nothing to do with Harvard.The attorney of record for Ryan on the case,Richard Glovsky, did not return a phone callyesterday.

Two other former Justice officials had beenscheduled to testify this month. But Wisemanhonored a motion by one to nullify his subpoenaand a prosecutor who worked under Ryan was alsoable to secure a delay.

Nishnic's attorney said Demjanjuk's lawyerswould like to question Ryan on February 4