Bathe grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. She graduated from Stanford University, and she received a Master of Fine Arts from New York University. In June 2007, Ryan Michelle Bathe married fellow actor (and Stanford alum) Sterling K. Brown. They have two sons.
Bathe has had guest starring roles in a number of television shows, include ER, Half & Half, Girlfriends, Brothers & Sisters, and How I Met Your Mother. She was regular cast member during the second season of the ABC legal drama series Boston Legal playing attorney Sara Holt. From 2009 to 2010, she had a recurring role on the short-lived NBC medical drama Trauma, and in 2011 had starring role in the TV Land sitcom Retired at 35. She had main roles in the independent films All About Us and April Moon.
In 2012, Bathe co-starred opposite Katherine Heigl in the crime comedy film One for the Money. Later that year, she had a recurring role opposite her real life husband Sterling K. Brown in the Lifetime drama series Army Wives. In 2014, she was a female lead opposite Kevin Hart in the ABC comedy pilot Keep It Together. In 2016, Bathe was cast in a recurring role in the NBC drama series, This Is Us, also starring Brown.
