Rings are ephemeral on a geologic time scale. One figure I've seen is that they exist for around 100 thousand years if not shepherded by moons as with Saturn. So what if the event that formed the ring happened within a few millennia of the kindling? There's no historical record of it and no cultural imprint as it happened prior to the evolution of writing and the dawn of sapience. This would contradict my earlier idea that the Bright Way would waste a bunch of time on rings being necessary or beneficial for the formation of life since it would be pretty clear geologically that life existed prior to the formation of the ring.

The ring would form from the decaying orbit of a captured asteroid, similar to what is predicted for the moons of Mars.