Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on May 26, 1924, Stryker was raised by his grandfather and his aunts after his mother died.
He sought to enlist in the United States Army in 1942, but was rejected due to bad vision.
After World War II ended, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota to study social work.
Stryker changed his major to sociology and later completed a doctorate in the subject at UM in 1955.
Stryker served as editor in chief of Social Psychology Quarterly from 1967 to 1969, and assumed an equivalent role for the American Sociological Review between 1982 and 1986.