Rank noises made by pub ghost (9)
I believe the answer is:
inspector
'rank' is the definition.
(police rank)
'noises made by pub ghost' is the wordplay.
'noises made by' shows a homophone (sound like).
'pub' becomes 'inn' (I've seen this before).
'ghost' becomes 'spector' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'inn' sounds like 'in'.
'in'+'spector'='INSPECTOR'
(Other definitions for inspector that I've seen before include "Bus, train official" , "Examining official" , "I look over" , "leading rank" , "auditor" .)