Fluctuation
Ryu only really knew one way to teleport long distance, and that was formations.
No matter how high his Spatial affinity, there would be a diminishing return on time and energy the longer distance you wanted to teleport.
It was far easier to shrink the ground than it was to pierce through space. But when you shrunk the ground, you were forcefully bringing together two folded pieces of reality. The further apart those pieces, the more energy it took, and even if you had infinite energy, it would still take time.
Piercing through space was actually something that happened more on a quantum level than not. But the complexities were irrelevant to Ryu right now, because the main point was that even they would have diminishing returns.
After all, if you were piercing through space, even if it was faster than folding space, you would still run into the problem of energy and time eventually. It was a problem you would have to face no matter what.