His father Fabian Wołągiewicz (1908–1940) was murdered in the Katyn massacre along with other prominent male members of the family, and in June 1940 Ryszard and his mother and brother were deported by the Soviet Union to the Komi Republic.
They returned to Poland in 1946, and Wołągiewicz graduated from high school in Choszczno in 1952.
In 1952, Wołągiewicz started studying archaeology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, gaining his MA in 1956 with a thesis on the Hallstatt culture.
He subsequently worked at the National Museum, Szczecin, and was appointed director in 1980.
The museum Muzeum Ziemi Choszczeńskiej, founded in 1994, is dedicated to Wołągiewicz.