From the age of 14, Reggio spent the next fourteen years in fasting, times of silence, and prayer, training to be a friar within the Congregation of Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic pontifical teaching order. During his time with the order, Reggio co-founded La Clinica de la Gente, a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and La Gente, a community-organizing project in northern New Mexico’s barrios. In 1963 he co-founded Young Citizens for Action, a community organization project that aided juveniles in the street gangs of Santa Fe. After he left the order, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe, a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization, and research, in 1972.

In 1995 Reggio directed the short feature titled Evidence, another collaboration between Glass and him. He has also directed the documentary Anima Mundi, funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature to promote its diversity program.

Reggio has been involved in many progressive political causes in the United States, including work for the American Civil Liberties Union, co-organizing a multi-media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior. Reggio resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico and focuses on films exploring the negative impacts of consumerism and fundamentalism on the world. Godfrey Reggio participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2006.

In 2014, Reggio was recognized by the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City with a full career retrospective titled Life with Technology: The Cinema of Godfrey Reggio.