She was born Norma Roman in the Boston suburb of Lynn, Massachusetts and as a young girl pursued her desire to become an actress by enrolling in the prestigious Bishop Lee Dramatic School in Boston. Following completion of her studies Roman headed to Hollywood where she obtained bit parts in several films before being cast in the title role in the 1945 thirteen episode serial Jungle Queen.

In the early 1950s, The Jungle Queen became one of the television serials that brought Roman a whole new audience of baby boomers. In 1949 she had a secondary but important role in the acclaimed 1949 film, Champion. In one of her more recognizeable roles, Roman appeared in the 1951 Alfred Hitchcock thriller, Strangers on a Train.

Married three times, she had one son with her first husband, Mortimer Hall. In the 1950 film Three Secrets, she played a distraught mother waiting to learn whether or not her child survived a plane crash. Ironically, in July of 1956, Roman and her four-year-old son were passengers on board the SS Andrea Doria ocean liner who were separated from each other when the ship collided with another and sank. Rescued, Roman had to wait to learn her son's fate which resulted in a media frenzy for photos as she waited at the pier in New York City for her son's safe arrival aboard one of the rescue ships.

A stage actress, in 1959 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. Although she never achieved the level of stardom in film that many had originally predicted for her, Ruth Roman nevertheless worked regularly in film well into the 1960s after which she began making appearances on television shows and movies including a recurring role in 1965-66 in The Long, Hot Summer, and for the 1986 season of Knots Landing and on Murder She Wrote.

It was for her many quality performances on television for which she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6672 Hollywood Blvd.

She died in her sleep at her Laguna Beach, California home in 1999, aged 76.