Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Ronald McLeod was raised in Chicago where he attended the University of Chicago for two years before enlisting in the Royal Canadian Engineers for service in World War I. Upon his return from France in 1919, he started his career as an illustrator for a Chicago advertising agency and, to earn some extra money, playing piano for radio station KYW, Chicago. He was married in 1923.

Wanting more professional independence, he and his wife moved to Paris in early 1925, his intentions being education, particularly drawing, and work. After considering and rejecting other schools, he enrolled at Delacluse Academy because, as he said, "Delacluse has drawing every morning and painting every afternoon with criticism every other day in the one and alternate days in the other." He was most comfortable with watercolors.

At the same time, he was doing travel posters for the windows of American Express Company in Paris while also working for Ford, Sunoco, Congoleum, Mobilgas for Life magazine and others in the United States. He sent his finished work back to these companies via the Mauritania and other ocean liners. As a result, education became an on-off affair!

In 1926, the couple moved to London where Ronald McLeod continued working through the Erwin Wasey agency.

In early 1927, they returned to the United States, settling in Bronxville, Westchester County, New York. Their house in the Lawrence Park section of the village was built for a Hudson River School painter, Will Low, so Ronald had a large studio. Beyond magazine advertising, posters and billboards for companies, he did considerable illustration of stories and covers for "Collier's" magazine and others.

Ronald McLeod retired in 1959, moving to Florida where, for pleasure, he painted portraits of family and friends in costumes as they may have looked in earlier centuries. Too, he worked informally in oil, tempera and acrylics, at one time winning a local contest!

He died in 1977 at Bradenton, Florida.