From 2007 to 2015, Patrick was a Republican member of the Texas Senate for the 7th District, which included a small portion of the city of Houston and several Houston-area suburbs located mostly in northwest Harris County.

[2] He is the only child of the former Vilma Jean Marshall (1926–2016) and Charles Anthony Goeb (1926–2002), who worked at The Baltimore Sun for thirty-one years as a newspaper vendor,[6] before he retired in 1984.

[2][11] As a broadcaster, Patrick got attention through various stunts, such as painting himself blue in support for the Houston Oilers and wearing a large cowboy hat.

"[2] Patrick left his job at KHOU in the mid-1980s after failing to reach an agreement with Belo Corporation (which bought KHOU-TV in 1984) for a long-term contract.

[2][12] When the oil boom of the mid 1980s ended, Houston's economy went into decline and fiscally damaged Patrick's sports bar chain.

[2][12] In 1986, after the sports bars failed, Patrick filed for personal bankruptcy and in October 1992, discharged several hundred thousand dollars of debt obligation.

[11] As a talk radio host, Patrick advocated for fiscal conservatism, evangelical Christian values on social issues, and he became a vocal opponent of illegal immigration.

[12] In November 2008, Patrick began work to produce The Heart of Texas, a movie based on a real-life story of two families in Simonton, a small Houston-area city.

[18][19] Patrick proposed a boycott of Bill Maher's television show Politically Incorrect over controversial statements made by the comedian following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

[22] Soon after winning re-election, Patrick announced, and subsequently created, a Tea Party Caucus in the Texas state legislature, which at its creation had 48 legislative members.

[43] On November 4, 2014, Patrick won the general election against his state Senate colleague, Democrat Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, to become the lieutenant governor-elect of Texas.

[46][47] In addition to his own campaign, Patrick was active in endorsing and assisting Republican primary candidates in the Texas Senate, including some challengers to GOP incumbents.

[61][62] Soon after assuming office, the Texas Senate voted to drop the threshold needed to consider a bill from two-thirds to three-fifths, something that Patrick had long supported.

[75] According to the Houston Chronicle, Patrick "uniquely grasped and wielded the power of the growing right-wing movement in Texas," allowing him to become influential in the state.

"[82] Patrick's Mandatory Ultrasound Bill was initially halted by an injunction issued in Zurawski v. State of Texas, a legal challenge headed by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.

[86][87] At the time, Patrick cited a statistic later determined to be misleading by PolitiFact that Texas's 1,200+ public school districts, considered as a group, are the fifth-largest employer in the world.

[88] Patrick has supported placing creationism within the public school curriculum in Texas, despite court rulings that such a policy would violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

[103] As Lieutenant Governor, Patrick moved to keep National Guard troops sent to the Texas-Mexico border during the illegal immigration surge of 2014 indefinitely, rather than until March 2015, as originally planned.

"[116][117][118] In 2017, Patrick strongly advocated for a bathroom bill that would prohibit transgender students at public schools from using any restroom other than that of their biological sex.

"[119] Patrick encouraged state Senator Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham to introduce a bathroom bill similar to a previous law adopted in 2016 in North Carolina, and strongly pushed for it at its proposal on January 5, 2017.

[119] Texas House Speaker Joe Straus of San Antonio, a moderate Republican, said that the measure is not an important matter for lower chamber.

"[125] In 2021, Patrick presided over the passage of legislation in the Texas Senate that restricted voting rights, including prohibiting local boards from sending applications for mail-in ballots to voters.

[125] In 2022, Patrick's campaign sent out a mass mailing to Republican voters across Texas with inaccurate instructions on how to send requests for absentee ballots.

Patrick's campaign defended the inaccurate instructions, saying it "gave voters an added layer of comfort" not to have to mail sent to "Blue County election officials.

He said: "We're not gonna turn this into California where anybody can get a slip from a doctor and go down to some retail store and say 'You know, I got a headache today so I need marijuana,' because that's just a veil for legalizing it for recreational use.

"[127] In November 2012, Patrick asked then-Texas attorney general Greg Abbott's office to issue an opinion on the constitutionality of government entities providing domestic partner insurance benefits.

[128] Patrick was interviewed extensively on ABC's 20/20 segment "The Age of Consent: When Young Love Is a Sex Crime," defending his position on the strict Texas statutory rape laws.

He criticized Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Dade Phelan for failing to put the bill to a vote on the floor in the last legislative session on Twitter.

[61] In July 2017, Ryan Patrick was chosen to be U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas by U.S. President Donald Trump, and the United States Senate subsequently confirmed him.

[2] Though Patrick was a member of the Second Baptist Church Houston since 1992, he stated he was not truly a Christian until March 1994, when, on a television-and-radio convention in Las Vegas, he repented of his sins, committed his life to God, and was saved.