Paul and Ethel Ross adopted Rick Ross in 1953 in Cleveland, Ohio. The Ross family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1956, where Ross grew up and attended school, completing high school in 1971. He then worked for a finance company and for a bank. In 1974 a court convicted Ross for the attempted burglary of a vacant model home and sentenced him to probation. The following year he was sentenced to five years' probation for his involvement in a jewelry embezzlement scheme at a retail store in Arizona. Ross later said "I had been in trouble as a young man, and I turned my life around ... I never again in my life made another mistake like that." In 1983 the Maricopa County Superior Court vacated both judgments of guilt in the absence of any opposition, dismissed the charges and restored Ross's civil rights. In 1975, Ross began work for a cousin's car-salvage business, eventually becoming company vice-president. He continued working in this field until 1982.

Ross says he first became concerned about controversial religious groups in 1982. Jewish Voice Broadcast, a missionary group founded by an Assembly of God minister named Louis Kaplan, specifically targeted Jews for conversion to Pentecostalism. The group infiltrated the Jewish nursing home where Ross's grandmother lived. After bringing the matter to the attention of the director and of the local Jewish community, Ross successfully campaigned to have the group's activities stopped. He then began working as a volunteer, lecturer and researcher for a variety of Jewish organizations. He worked for the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) appointed him to two national committees focusing on cults and inter-religious affairs. During the 1980s Ross represented the Jewish community on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Arizona Department of Corrections. Later the Committee elected him as its chairman, and he served as chairman of the International Coalition of Jewish Prisoners Programs sponsored by B'nai Brith in Washington D.C. Ross's work within the prison system covered inmate religious rights and educational efforts regarding hate groups. Ross also worked as a member of the professional staff of the Jewish Family and Children's Service (JFCS) and the Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE) in Phoenix, Arizona.

In 1986 Ross left the staff of the JFCS and BJE to become a full-time private consultant and deprogrammer.As part of his work he undertook a number of involuntary deprogramming interventions at the request of parents whose children had joined controversial groups and movements. As of 2004, Ross had handled more than 350 deprogramming cases in various countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Italy, with a typical cost of around $5,000 per case (in 2008 dollars).Ross claims a success-rate of 75 per cent. Nick Johnstone credits him with having "rescued many people from harmful situations".

In 1989 the CBS television program 48 Hours covered Ross's deprogramming of a 14-year-old boy, Aaron Paron, a member of the Potter's House organization. Seeing his mother as "possessed by the devil", Aaron refused to leave the organization. Most of the hour-long program focused upon Ross's efforts to persuade Paron to see the Potter's House as "a destructive Bible-based group" bent on taking control of its members' lives. The case resulted in the parties entering a stipulation that Potter's House would not harbor Aaron, entice him away from his mother, attempt to influence his behavior or take any action that would interfere with his mother's parental rights.

In 1992 and 1993, Ross opposed actions of the Branch Davidian group led by David Koresh in Waco, Texas. Ross had previously deprogrammed a member of the group. Ross became the only "deprogrammer" to work with Branch Davidian members prior to a siege involving the death of many of the group's members at Waco. Television broadcaster CBS hired Ross as an on-scene analyst for their coverage of the Waco siege. Ross also offered unsolicited advice to the FBI during the standoff. A later Department of Justice Report on the matter stated that "the FBI did not 'rely' on Ross for advice whatsoever during the standoff." According to the report, the FBI "politely declined his unsolicited offers of assistance throughout the standoff" and treated the information Ross supplied as it would any other unsolicited information received from the public. Criticism of government agencies' involvement with Ross has come from Nancy Ammerman, who cited FBI interview notes stating that "Ross 'has a personal hatred for all religious cults'" and criticized the BATF and the FBI for relying on Ross and not treating him as a "questionable source of information." Other scholars also criticized Ross' involvement. Ross characterized his critics on the matter as cult apologists who held the belief that cult groups "should not be held accountable for their action like others within our society".

In 1995 Ross filed for personal bankruptcy following a substantial damages award against him in a civil trial for actions associated with an attempt to deprogram Jason Scott, an 18-year-old member of a United Pentecostal Church in Bellevue, Washington. Two men seized Scott; he then experienced handcuffing, duct tape placed over his mouth, and confinement in a seaside cottage for five days. The deprogramming personnel restrained him and told him his release depended on the completion of the deprogramming. A January 1994 jury trial for unlawful imprisonment resulted in acquittal for Ross. A subsequent civil suit resulted in a judgment awarding Scott US$5 million in compensatory and punitive damages from a number of defendants, of which $3 million were from Ross. In 1996 plaintiff Scott became reconciled with his mother and dismissed his Scientologist lawyer, Kendrick Moxon; he then settled with Ross, accepting $5,000 plus 200 hours of Ross's professional services.

As a result of the legal risks involved Ross stopped advocating coercive deprogramming or involuntary interventions for adults, preferring instead voluntary exit counseling without the use of force or restraint. He states that despite refinement of processes over the years, exit counseling and deprogramming continue to depend on the same principles.Stuart A. Wright has referred to Ross as one of the most important "hardline anticultists".

In 1996 Ross started a website titled "The Ross Institute Internet Archives for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements". Ross has lectured at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago and University of Arizona, and has testified as an expert witness in court cases. According to the biography page on his website he has worked as a paid consultant for television networks CBS, CBC and Nippon, and Miramax/Disney retained him as a technical consultant to one of the actors involved in making Jane Campion's film Holy Smoke!.

In 2001 Ross moved to New Jersey and two years later founded the Rick A. Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults and Controversial Groups and Movements, a non-profit, 501 public charity located in New Jersey, USA. The Advisory Board of the RRI includes Ford Greene, a California attorney specializing in cult-related litigation, as well as Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, co-authors of the books America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change and Holy Terror: The Fundamentalist War on America's Freedoms in Religion, Politics and Our Private Lives. Psychologist Margaret Singer also served as a board member of the Institute until her death in 2003.

In June 2004 Landmark Education filed a US$1 million lawsuit against the Institute, claiming that the Institute's online archives damaged Landmark Education's product.In December 2005, Landmark Education filed to dismiss its own lawsuit with prejudice, purportedly on the grounds of a material change in case law after the publication of an opinion in another case, Donato v. Moldow, regarding the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

The Ross Institute also became involved in a lawsuit with NXIVM Corporation, which offers an exclusive and costly executive training seminar entitled "Executive Success Program". NXIVM sued Ross and others for copyright infringement and other claims following the Institute's website's publication of reports by psychologist Paul Martin and psychiatrist John Hochman quoting sections of a course manual from NXIVM. The reports also contained statements which, NXIVM alleged, misled readers into thinking of the Executive Success program as a "cult". A court denied a motion for preliminary injunctive relief by NXIVM on the ground that the quotations constituted fair use. In 2004 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the ruling on appeal and the United States Supreme Court refused to review the case. NXIVM then filed an amended complaint, parts of which the court dismissed; litigation continued .