[1] After a brief stint in law school at USC, Ritchie turned his attention to printing, his true passion.
He enrolled at Frank Wiggins Trade School (now Los Angeles Trade–Technical College).
[4] Returning to South Pasadena, Ritchie co-founded, along with fellow printer Grant Dahlstrom and bookseller Jacob "Jake" Zeitlin, the Rounce & Coffin Club.
[6][7] The following year, he established the Ward Ritchie Press, through which he published thousands of books, over 750 designed by himself; his output included works by poets Robinson Jeffers, Carl Sandburg, Archibald MacLeish, Carlyle MacIntyre, librarian Lawrence Clark Powell, novelist Alexandre Dumas, and many others.
[1] In 1987 he gave the Englehard Lecture on Fine Printing: The Los Angeles Tradition at the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.