Yes, check him out. But he's in my opinion not a 'great' composer, but 'merely' a good one. Here are a few other symphonies, all of them better in my opinion than anything Ries wrote that you might enjoy. Some of them have already been mentionned by others.....
- Mendelssohn's symphony No.4
- Farrenc's symphony No.2
- Tchaikovsky's symphony No.6
- Saint-Saens' symphony No.3
- Dvorak's symphony No.9
- Alfven's symphony No.2
- Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherezade" (technically not a symphony, but an incredible orchestral work in four movements)