He was considered to be the newer generation of Korean footballers that will make up the national team in the future until his form started to fall.
On 9 January 2010, Lee made his first international cap for South Korea at the friendly match against Zambia.
Although he was part of the 2010 FIFA World Cup squad, he only got 5 minutes to play in the opening match against Greece where they won 2:0.
Seung Ryul has expressed his desire to train hard for the upcoming 2010 Asian Games and hopes to break into Europe.
He has also expressed that the World Cup was a valuable experience and learned a lot from training with Park Ji-sung.