The men’s race started slowly and a group of about 20 athletes went through 10km in 32:00, with world record holder Haile Gebrselassie spearheading the field and Ramaala latched on to the back of the group.
The South African faded, however, going through the halfway mark some 20 seconds off the leaders in 1:05.39.
Soon after halfway Ramaala dropped out, and minutes later world record holder Haile Gebrselassie also called it quits.
Exiting the Queensboro Bridge in the 25th kilometre, Kenyan Emmanuel Mutai stormed ahead, stretching out the pack as he pressed ahead along First Avenue.
Ethiopian Gebre Gebremariam, however, running his first marathon, hung on and eventually broke clear at the 40km mark to win in 2:08.14.
Mutai finished second in 2:09.18, holding off a late charge from unheralded countryman Moses Kigen Kipkosgei who took third in 2:10.39.
Van Dyk finished in 1:47.10 in the wheelchair race, almost 10 minutes behind David Weir of Great Britain who defeated Japan’s Masazumi Soejima by two seconds in a sprint finish to win in 1:37.29.
Edna Kiplagat of Kenya, who won the Los Angeles Marathon in March, broke away from debutants Shalane Flanagan of the US and fellow Kenyan Mary Keitany in the dying stages to win the women’s race in 2:28.20.
Flanagan, the first American woman to place among the top two since 1990, fought back over the last two kilometres to finish second in 2:28.40, and Keitany, the 2009 world half-marathon champion, took third in 2:29.01.
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