Rory is an exchange student from Ireland who arrives as a sophomore, and is living at the home of Brittany Pierce (Heather Morris) while studying at McKinley High.

McGinty was invited back for the series finale, but could not take part due to scheduling commitments with the world tour for Irish singing group Celtic Thunder.

Rory and Artie (Kevin McHale) compete to be Sugar Motta's (Vanessa Lengies) date at her Valentine's Day party in the episode "Heart".

[7] Most of the reviewers had positive things to say about his singing voice, including Rolling Stone's Erica Futterman, who said his was "quite lovely" and had "rich tones", and Rae Votta of Billboard, who called him a "smooth crooner".

[8][9] Bobby Hankinson of The Houston Chronicle, however, said he had never been "floored" by McGinty's voice, "so both of his numbers fell extremely flat to me", and Votta thought having him perform two solos was "overkill on his character introduction".

[9][10] In general, "Bein' Green" was considered less impressive than "Take Care of Yourself", though it had its supporters: Votta and AOLTV's Crystal Bell both referred to it as "a nice introduction", and Abby West of Entertainment Weekly declared that his "simple, clear-voiced ode to being an outsider rang true and was hauntingly beautiful", and gave it an "A−".

[12][14] The Los Angeles Times's Amy Reiter was "blown away", and Jen Chaney of The Washington Post gave it an "A" with the comment that Rory "handled it with adorable aplomb".

[19] West wrote that "Rory's crooning take" of "Blue Christmas" was "smooth and lovely", and gave it a "B+", and Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal agreed with the in-show assessment that it was "mournfully beautiful".

Anthony Benigno of The Faster Times called it "cheap stereotyping", and "juvenile" on the part of the show's writers, and Chaney characterized the tweaking of his opening solo to be about "Irish exchange students being bullied" as "forced".

BuddyTV's John Kubicek declared that it was his "favorite thing from the entire third season of Glee", and Bell approved, though she said "the writers don't know how to use" Rory, and was disappointed that his brotherly relationship with Finn had "fizzled".

[30][31] VanDerWerff wrote that "the show will just pick whichever characterization of Rory is most convenient for the episode in question", which made it "hard to care all that much about how he's alone for Christmas or how he's building a friendship with Sam".