According to a memoir of his childhood, which Roeslan wrote in the 1970s, his mother was also a strong Javanese nationalist, and it was from her that he first learned about Dutch colonial rule and the possibility of independence.

During the Indonesian fight for independence from the Dutch in the late 1940s, Roeslan was a key lieutenant under Sukarno, earning the future president's trust and ensuring him a secure place in the new government.

Roeslan's most prominent moment as a public servant came in 1955, when he served as secretary-general of the Bandung Conference, a major meeting of African and Asian countries working to form what became the Non-Aligned Movement as an alternative to alignment with one of the Cold War superpowers.

While being foreign minister, Roeslan was briefly arrested in August 1956 by the Indonesian military in West Java, and accused of corruption.

His second daughter, Retnowati Abdulgani-Knapp, wrote a biography about her father, A Fading Dream: The Story of Roeslan Abdulgani and Indonesia, which was published in 2003.