Ris taught at several grade schools in Indiana, Illinois and Maryland before becoming a professor of education at Morehead State University, a position which she held for 20 years.

[4] During her term as superior general, revised versions of the congregation's Constitutions and Complementary Document (1997) were published.

Ris also continued the process of the canonization of the order's foundress, Theodore Guerin, including the beatification ceremony in Rome in October 1998.

[6] Ris was behind a major effort during the Catholic Jubilee year of 2000 to forgive the debt of three sponsored institutions of the Congregation.

[8] In 2011, Ris completed and published a new biography of Guerin that had originally been started by Sister Joseph Eleanor Ryan prior to her death in 1991.