He attended inner-city public schools in Seattle and, while working on freight trains for the Union Pacific Railroad, earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Washington.

His second book, Neither World (Miami University Press, 1995), which received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, garnered him national prominence.

On translating Lorca's poetry, Angel noted that he was familiar with the music that the poems paid homage to, as "It resembled the incantatory medieval singing of the Sephardic synagogue that I grew up in."

In his later years, he was Edith R. White Distinguished Professor at the University of Redlands, and a member of the MFA in Writing faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

On March 9, 2020, University of Redlands Provost Kathy Ogren announced that Ralph Angel had died after suffering from a brief, unspecified illness and subsequent hospitalization.