Riverpod: How to convert WidgetRef to Ref?

I was creating an application where, I need to call a function, which will take Ref as input (as it can be called by the providers), but I also need to call it using WidgetRef, while listening to a StateNotifier Provider.

final firstProvider = ... //Initialization

final someProvider = Provider<String>((ref) {
  performOperation(ref);
  return '';
});

class MyWidget extends ConsumerWidget {
...

  Widget build(BuildContext context, WidgetRef ref) {
    ref.listen(firstProvider, (pref, next) => performOperation(ref));
    return ...;
  }
}

Where the performOperation function might be like this:-

void performOperation(Ref ref) {
  ref.read(...);
  ref.read(...);
  ...
}