[11][12] Ritner became involved with the Anti-Masonic movement in the late 1820s, and after two defeats by George Wolf in his bids to become governor,[13] he was finally successful during the 1835 election.

The Pennsylvania State Constitution was amended, all White freemen over the age of twenty-one were given the right to vote, and the practice of awarding official positions as "life offices" was abolished.

[17] Ritner's reputation, however, was negatively affected by Anti-Masonic efforts to gerrymander state legislative districts for their benefit.

When he ran for a second term as a Whig Party-supported, Anti-Masonic candidate during the controversial 1838 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, which grew increasingly heated as anti-Masonic and anti-abolitionist rhetoric rose,[18] he narrowly lost to Democratic nominee David Rittenhouse Porter, who, as a Grand Master of the Huntingdon Lodge of the Freemasons, had risen to the level of Deputy Grand Master of his Masonic district.

In 1849 newly elected Whig President Zachary Taylor nominated Ritner for the post of Director of the United States Mint, then in Philadelphia.

[25][26] Governor Ritner has a residence hall named in his honor on the University Park campus of Penn State.

In 1938, the state of Pennsylvania dedicated the Governor Ritner Highway, which connects Carlisle and Shippensburg along Route 11 in Cumberland County.