Ortiz garnered widespread attention for her role as Hilda Suarez in the ABC comedy-drama series Ugly Betty from 2006 to 2010.

She also appeared in such films like Labor Pains (2009) and Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011), and starred in Little Girl Lost: The Delimar Vera Story (2008).

[5] As a child, Ortiz studied ballet for eight years, until the pain of dancing en pointe forced her to pursue a different artistic discipline.

After joining LAByrinth Theatre Company,[6] she appeared Off-Broadway in In Arabia We'd All Be Kings, directed by Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and named one of the 10-best plays of 1999 by the magazine Time Out New York.

Ortiz appeared in several television shows including NYPD Blue, Everybody Loves Raymond, Commander In Chief, ER, and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

[1] In 2006, Ortiz was cast as Hilda Suarez, the lead character's sister, in the ABC comedy-drama series Ugly Betty.

I just put on some glasses and kept my hair kind of flat and layered on the clothing", describing what she wore when auditioning for the role of Betty.

She also had a voice role in Batman: Gotham Knight, and starred in the made-for-television movie Little Girl Lost: The Delimar Vera Story in 2008.

[9] After Ugly Betty ended in 2010, Ortiz was cast as the lead character in the ABC drama pilot True Blue about San Francisco homicide detectives reunited to solve the murder of one of their own.

[26] Since 2019, Ortiz appears in the main cast of the comedy drama Whiskey Cavalier, playing FBI profiler Susan Sampson.