I would agree except that it seems to go deeper than that. Pilots are ranked by how little spare fuel they take. If they dare to take too much spare fuel they have to write a memo to management explaining why.

Actually, they were low on fuel, because the company was forcing captains to carry only the company-approved minimum under threat of discipline.

It's not company-approved, it's regulator-approved, which is designed to be sufficient. Airlines have no reason to go above that, except for planning reasons (eg you might want to add some extra fuel to have the option to fly faster on some legs to make up for delays). So I wouldn't expect Ryanair to carry less fuel than other airlines.

The only exception that airlines will sometimes do is to juggle around destination and alternate airports so that they can save some fuel on that (you have to have enough fuel to reach an alternate airport, and then 45 minutes in addition to that).

It may be designed to be sufficient but you still have to declare a fuel emergency if you fall below it so it is not a normal event.

While I don't like Ryanair, this scenario isn't very likely. There will always be lots of paperwork etc. after declaring an emergency, which ultimately could end up with the pilots losing their license if it was discovered that they were repeatedly doing this.

I'm not an airline transport pilot, but in my personal flying, I've declared emergencies twice and asked for priority handling due to minimum fuel concerns once. No paperwork on any of them.

I also spend significant time on aviation/pilot forums, and I've literally never heard of "lots of paperwork" for any emergency that resulted in a safe, no injuries landing. The topic comes up regularly in the "should I have declared an emergency or not?" discussions, the common argument against is "I don't want the paperwork" (a strange trade off against a life-safety question in any case), and the most I've heard as routine followup is a phone call from an inspector.

My experience is exclusively US, so perhaps it's different in other areas of the world.

Maybe there is a difference between parts of the world, but I would be surprised if airlines don't have some kind of routine to follow when an emergency is declared. And I would be even more surprised if airline pilots on Ryanair routinely used emergencies as an excuse without it having any consequences.

The only issue I've ever caused was triggering a TCAS warning for a landing airplane because I was slow on starting a turn. Even though there were VFR conditions and we were at a safe dinstance, the other pilots said they had to report it as a matter of company policy, and my instructor had to make a few phone calls afterwards.