Ripoll helped organize a relief mission for workers at an Acindar steel plant in Villa Constitución whose health benefits had been cut in retaliation for their electing a left-wing shop steward.

These activities made her a target during the subsequent Dirty War, however, and in 1977, she left her post at the government health service, PAMI, and sought refuge in Colombia.

[1] She was, however, elected to the Buenos Aires City Legislature on the Socialist Workers' Movement (MST) ticket in 2000, and re-elected in 2003.

An agreement between the MST and the Communist Party of Argentina resulted in her resignation from the body in December 2004, in favor of Marcos Wolman.

[3] She ran for a seat in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies for the Province of Buenos Aires in 2005, and, with veteran actor Héctor Bidonde, for the Presidency in 2007; but she failed on both occasions.