You’re further along than I thought! Sorry if it sounded patronising. Maybe it will be of more use to newer players reading the thread. 
Ok, with 4300gp in mind I could give you a run down of the skills I started to develop on at that level. Different people develop different skills at different times, so not all of this will be useful to you, but hopefully you (and others) can grab something out of it.
Similar to you I started to feel as though I was ‘missing’ something partway into G2. The main reasons for that lie in some of the more subtle skills that don’t jump out at you as being flashy or amazing, but really build the structure of your developing strategy. Being able to Focus Attack > Solar Plexus Blow > Crouching Light Punch > Crouching Heavy Punch xx Heavy Shoryuken xx Focus Attack Dash Cancel > Metsu Hadouken is all well and good… but if you can’t space yourself correctly, read the opponent and capitalise on opportunities then you’ll never get any of the flashy stuff out! But yes, without further ado:
Spacing
Often misunderstood due to it’s covert appearance in matches, Spacing is commonly the source of a lot of unexpected losses or received damage. Essentially, it is your ability as a player to place your character in a favourable position in relation to your enemy. It’s the practice of extending your options while limiting theirs. You very likely already use these strategies in some way, but here a few important facets to consider:
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Knowing the ideal range for your character. For Ryu this tends to be medium-close, or “crouching medium kick” range. From this distance Ryu maximises his options for attacking and defending against the opponent. In general you want to be pushing to get into this position whenever appropriate. As mentioned by other posters, the reason for this is the BnB nature of Ryu’s medium kick and your ability to pressure your opponent and cancel into a wide variety of other attacks on hit.
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Considering the opponent’s options. This has more to do with reacting to how your opponent is thinking, and ties in to the Mix-Up Game discussed a bit further down. Baiting your opponent into making a mistake is often done via Spacing. For example, standing slightly away from a downed opponent if you expect a wake-up reversal can cause them to miss the attack or not attempt it at all. In either situation you will usually come out safe.
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Setups. Correct spacing is key to countering, defending and attacking. I realise a lot of these walls of text seem ‘all theory, no practical’ but I found the best way to learn was to grasp the concept then watch videos of high class players while specifically watching for these elements. Look out for succesful anti-air, defences and punishes in videos and how they are used to score ultras and high damage combos. A good start would be:
The Ryu video thread.
Ryu Match-Up Discussion.
Street Fighter Dojo. < Great for analysing character-specific strategies.
When playing online in all cases you should try to take every loss as a learning experience rather than ‘I wasn’t good enough’. I learnt a good 50% of my tricks simply by emulating people who destroyed me.
Zoning
This refers to your ability to control the screen and your opponents movements via mind-games and actual attacks. For Ryu this revolves heavily around his Hadouken. Due to it’s swift execution and recovery it is one of the best fireballs in the game and ideally suited for Zoning. The general idea is to keep pressure on your opponent to force them to make a mistake or at least move into a position where you take the advantage. Once again look for this in videos, but some general ideas include:
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Using fireballs at medium-long range to cause the opponent to either block or jump over it. If you are spaced correctly then an enemy trying to jump over a fireball is often punishable, but at the very least it enables you to gain ground. Daigo is terrifying with this ability so watching his videos will be a great help. Be careful of ultra combos that pass through fireballs (Abel, Chun-Li etc) and characters who have screen-spanning jump abilities such as Gouken, Akuma etc.
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Controlling Space. That sounds cool. This revolves around punishing attacking attempts by the opponent and thus psychologically limiting them from using the attack again. This comes in many forms but includes neutral jumps to cause punishable whiffs (such as Zangief’s green hand), back dashing to avoid wake-up reversals, anti-air attacks and more. In a lot of cases sufficient anti-air can effectively neutralise an opponent’s jumping ability completely. Speaking of which…
Anti-Air
This can be considered a mix of zoning and spacing, but I prefer to think of each of these categories as pieces of a whole rather than different names for the same thing.
Effective anti-air is related to knowing your spacing. There are many unique anti-airs for each character, but as you are considering Ryu I’ll discuss those types specifically:
Hard Punch Shoryuken / Close or Medium Range - This is the most common type of anti-air due to it’s tendancy to beat out many forms of jump-in. However, it can also be the most dangerous as if you happen to whiff it the recovery time is phenominal.
Crouching Hard Punch / Close or Medium Range - Many characters have this crouching uppercut type. This works well due to your crouching character’s small hitbox and the comparitvely large vertically-extended hitbox of your punch. Disadvantages here are it’s uselessness at long range and the chance of whiffing it when used too early on cross-ups.
Standing Roundhouse / Long or Medium Range - Another common anti-air for characters such as Sagat and Ryu. This one works as the long range anti-air due to it’s massively extended hitbox. It is also often used as the punish for opponents attemping to jump over long range fireballs. The disadvantage here is simply its tendancy to lose out at closer ranges. Knowing when to use it effectively is down to spacing.
Crouching Medium Kick / Medium or Close Range - An often overlooked anti-air for Ryu. C.mk causes Ryu’s hitbox to shrink extremely far to the ground, often causing jump-in attacks to whiff AND be punished by the kick itself when they land. The beauty of this one is your ability to cancel the c.mk into Tatsumaki, Hadouken or Shoryuken and get free ultra setups. The disadvantage is its weakness against meaty attacks (jump-in attacks that are executed late into the jump to cause their effective hit frames to land much lower to the ground than normal.) Attacks like this very often beat this type of anti-air.
Light Punch Shoryuken / Medium or Close Range - Under normal circumstances this isn’t an ideal anti-air due to its tendancy to be beaten or traded easily. However, for Ryu this has the interesting property of being able to link to Ex attacks, Supers and Ultras upon success.
Mix-Up Game
This term refers to a form of psychological warfare. It is the act of conditioning the opponent to expect something that isn’t actually coming. For example, you score a knockdown and then throw the opponent on his wake-up. You then throw the opponent on his wake-up again. On the next attack the opponent will usually try to counter your throw because of the pattern you have caused him to expect, but instead you could neutral jump and thus punish his whiffed throw attempt.
There are endless ways to mix-up and every player develops their own style. The key points are:
- Don’t be predictable. Change around what type of mix-ups you use regularly.
- Use the full spectrum of attacks to keep the opponent guessing. Throws, overheads, blocks and cross-ups all cause the opponent to react in a certain way. A lot of the time the reaction for one type gets punished by another, so once again, unpredictability is key.
- Don’t feel the need to ALWAYS attack. Sometimes giving the opponent breathing room will cause them try to escape your mix-up when in reality they’re falling precisely where you want them to. Standing away from a cornered Akuma when you are expecting a teleport, for example.
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Cross-Ups: Defence and Usage**
A cross-up is a jump-in attack that strikes on the oppisite side of the opponent. They are massively useful in mix-up strategies due to the opponent having to shift their block direction to succesfully defend. If a cross-up is hard to read then an opponent will often block in the wrong direction, causing huge life loss.
For Ryu, your cross-up options are:
Jumping Medium Kick - The hitbox for this attack enables it to hit the opponent from almost all angles making it the staple cross-up choice.
Jumping Light Kick - This one doesn’t do much damage but is much more subtle and beats out certain anti-airs.
Jumping Tatsumaki - This one takes a while to master but is also hard to see coming due to its ability to cross-up from further away than other attacks. [media=youtube]qp3HdqrwdkI[/media]
Ground Cross-Ups - A few special attacks can be used on waking up opponents that allow you to pass over them and hit from the other side. The timing is very strict but for example:
[media=youtube]GzfPr7O2pSo[/media] (Cross up ground tatsu).
As regards defending against cross-ups the most obvious start is to block high in the opposite direction. So if an opponent tries to cross you up from right to left, you would block by holding right. A good strategy to learn in general is to block low after blocking a high attack of ANY kind as that tends to be the most common follow up to a cross-up. Mix-ups change that some of the time but learning to read your opponent will help you to expect what might be coming.
Players with good spacing will try to peform ambiguous cross-ups. This is where the position of the opponent above you is more or less central causing confusing regarding which direction to block. Defence against this either requires an eagle eye or good use of anti-air to escape the situation entirely. Learning to use this strategy yourself is very beneficial and can be particularly deadly against opponents who are waking up.
That about covers my general tips for the ‘experienced beginner’. As I mentioned before, not ALL of this will be useful or should be taken as gospel. However, anybody who can benefit from walls of text are welcome to take it on board. 
If anyone has questions feel free to post.
