A member of the National Council after the 1920 legislative election, he succeeded his party fellow Ignaz Seipel as Austrian chancellor on 20 November 1924.

The supervision of the country's finances by a League of Nations Commissioner finished the next year, however, the depression continued and unemployment figures were rising.

Ramek finally resigned during the crisis around the state-owned Österreichische Postsparkasse postal savings bank on 20 October 1926, again succeeded by Ignaz Seipel.

Together with the other members of the chairmanship, Karl Renner and Sepp Straffner, he resigned on 4 March 1933 after a quarrel over voting irregularities, giving Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss the opportunity to prevent any further meetings of the legislature.

After the Social Democratic February Uprising of 1934 was crushed, Ramek on 30 April reconvened the assembly, only to adopt the imposed May Constitution of the Federal State of Austria, whereby the National Council was abolished.