Reach
A weapon with the reach tag can attack 5' further away than your attacks with non-reach melee weapons. Assuming you don't have any other reach modifiers, that means you can make a melee attack up to 10' away. Cool.
Ready
When you ready an action, you're saying "If this happens, I do that." Your action technically becomes a reaction, but Ready covers most basic actions.
Shoving a Creature, on p. 195 of the PHB says that you can take a special attack to shove or trip a character who is "within your reach." Success means you can push them 5' away from you or knock them prone. Since this maneuver is an attack and doesn't say the attack is unarmed, it's safe to say that you're using your weapon and that weapon's reach extends your range for shoving.
Take a moment to consider the implications of using that "shove" with a whip. Cool, yeah?
Now imagine a combat situation. You're the only one standing between your party of squishy ranged attackers and a Bugbear ready to attack. If the Bugbear gets past you, it'll be hard to defend your allies. Do you step forward and attack? I wouldn't.
"I'm going to ready my action. If that Bugbear steps into my reach, I'm shoving with the intent to knock him prone."
Cool, right? Well hold on, because I can do you one better.
Opportunity attacks can't normally be used to make grapple or shove attacks, since the rules for grapple and shove specifically say that you need to use your Attack Action and Opportunity says you just get to make a melee attack on your reaction. It's much more limited than Ready actions, and it should be.
But...
If you're playing a Fighter who takes Battle Master at 3rd level, you can learn the Pushing Attack maneuver. Pushing Attack says that when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you may spend a superiority die (you'll have 4 of those at 3rd level) to attempt to drive the target back up to 15' foot away!
Now, note that Pushing Attack does not require that the attack be part of an Attack Action. It can be part of a bonus action or even part of an attack of opportunity. The major limiting factor is how many times you can make a Pushing Attack before taking a long rest (once again, 4 times at level 3).
Finally, let's take a look at the feat of Polearm Master. With this feat, when you take an Attack action to attack with your polearm, you can take a bonus action to make a melee attack with the blunt end of the weapon. Also, when you're wielding your polearm, other creatures provoke attacks of opportunity when they enter your reach with that weapon.
Are your fingers tented with anticipation? Because mine are!
Okay, so I'm going to make a Human Fighter. At first level, I'm going to take Polearm Master as a Feat. At third level I choose Battle Master as my Archetype and pick Pushing Attack as one of my three maneuvers. Whenever an enemy moves into my range that I don't want near the back line, I'll throw them back with my pushing attack. If that fails and my opponent is foolish enough to end their movement in my reach (remembering that it takes a full 30' of movement to cross my threatened space), then I'll likely make a Shove attack with the intent to knock them prone.
It may not be a game-breaking power combo, but I sure as heck will talk like I own that 25'x25' space I'm standing in.
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