He was an activist and the Chairman of ITB Students Council in 1977. Ramli and 3 of his friends were the authors of the “White Book”. In the book, he wrote about many criticism against the system of authoritarian rule in Indonesian government under the Soeharto regime. The white book also explores the practice of corruption, collusion and nepotism in Indonesian Government, particularly the family of President Suharto. Although the white book was eventually banned in the campus, copies were circulated around Java. The popularity also received media attention at that time. The book was then translated into 8 languages by Ben Anderson, a scholar from Cornell University, USA. One of the first critics to Soeharto in Indonesia at that time, Ramli was jailed for 6 months.

Ramli graduated from Boston University with a Ph.D. degree in economics in 1990.

Ramli’s career in government started when he was appointed as the Chairman of Bulog (Indonesia’s large rice procurement agency) in Gus Dur’s Administration in March 2000. He was the chairman of Bulog for less than a year but he was regarded by some as making notable breakthroughs during the period. He introduced steps to improve Bulog’s performance. He made efforts to reform Bulog into a more transparent and accountable institution such as transforming off-budget accounts of Bulog to on-budget ones. During Dr Ramli’s period with Bulog there were reports of significant cost savings and efficiencies in the operation of the agency. As result, Bulog had a surplus on its account. Dr Ramli simplified and consolidated Bulog’s accounts from 117 to only 9 accounts.

On August 12, 2015, Ramli was appointed by President Joko Widodo as the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs, replacing Indroyono Soesilo. However, Ramli’s time as Coordinating Minister was marked by a series of public disagreements with other ministers. On July 27, 2016, in a cabinet reshuffle, Jokowi replaced Ramli as the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs with Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.