Lee grew up with his relatives in an obscure town in Daet, Camarines Norte. His mother died when he was 5 years old and only saw his father on few occasions. He studied primary and secondary school in the same town. It was said that Lee often sneak into moviehouses and bury himself in books at the school library, tearing away pages with striking images. An intelligent student, he consistently topped his class from grade school on to high school. His promising writing career took a first step when he won his first national literary award for a short story he wrote when he was still in high school. Driven by his passion to pursue dreams, he ran away from home and took a bus to Manila. He roamed the streets, taking on menial tasks as a waiter during the day and asking his townmates to accommodate him during the night until he collapsed one day in Avenida out of hunger. He was accepted at University of the Philippines Diliman as an AB English Major but never got his diploma from U.P. where, ironically enough, he now teaches. He lived as a fugitive during the Martial Law years and was later incarcerated. All these experiences would prove to be a wealthy source of inspiration from which to draw his stories and characters.

His body of works has spanned over twenty years which include writing short stories, plays, essays, teleplays, and screenplays. A rare achievement for a writer, two of his short stories won first prizes at the Palanca Awards for Literature for two years in a row. Thereafter, he never joined any literary contest believing that writers should not compete with each other. His two stage plays Pitik-Bulag Sa Buwan ng Pebrero and DH (Domestic Helper) played to SRO crowds. DH, starring Nora Aunor, has toured the US and Europe in 1993. He has written more than seventy produced scripts, earning for him more than thirty trophies from all the award-giving bodies in the Philippine movie industry. He has never and will never write any literary work in English, a conviction he holds to this day, even if that would mean going hungry.

Among the books he has published are: Si Tatang at mga Himala ng Ating Panahon (an anthology of some of his works), Pitik-Bulag Sa Buwan Ng Pebrero, Brutal/Salome (the first book of screenplays in the Philippines), Moral and Bukas May Pangarap. His screenplay for Salome has been translated into English and published by the University of Wisconsin—Madison in the U.S. as part of its textbook in film studies.

Ricky Lee has likewise published a screenplay manual, Trip to Quiapo, which is a required text in most communications courses.

In November 2008, Lee launched his first novel entitled "Para Kay B (o kung paano dinevastate ng pag-ibig ang 4 out of 5 sa atin)" at the U.P. Bahay ng Alumni.

Since 1982, Lee has been conducting scriptwriting workshops for free at his home. He challenges his students to go to the edge, to explore the limits of their imaginations until they feel like drowning. In one of his workshops in Tagaytay, the participants were stuck in a concept that didn't seem to work. He refused to let the group eat until the concept was finished. Hunger, he says, does wonders to one's creativity: it makes you imagine things. To help them come up with three-dimensional characters he encourages his students to inhabit their characters by immersing themselves in the characters' world, either as observers, participants or by acting out the roles of these characters in their own milieu. Thus, the more intrepid students may opt to act as a beggar in Quiapo, or a bargirl in Ermita, or a squatter in Smokey Mountain, even for one day, with hilarious results. One leaves the exercise a bit shaken but full of life-sustaining insights.

On January 22, 2008, filmmaker Nick Deocampo, Director of the Mowelfund Film Institute(1989—2008) and Center for New Cinema (2008—present) announced the holding of a Ricardo Lee Film Festival from February 4 to 10, 2008 - the World Arts Festival under Mayor Tito Sarion, in Daet city, Camarines Norte. Lee’s scripts became Philippine cinema classics of Philippine cinema, which made the 2nd golden age of 1980 Filipino movies. 5 films will be shown in the festival: Gina Alajar's "Salome," "Anak," "Muro Ami," "Gumapang Ka sa Lusak", and "Memories of Old Manila".