Ross grew up on Saskatchewan farm near Shellbrook, under the care of his mother who had early on divorced her seemingly unstable husband. Ross was employed by the Royal Bank of Canada, stationed in various small prairie towns that would inform much of his early work, until he was transferred to Winnipeg in 1933.

He was part of the war effort in England. He spent the rest of his banking career in Montreal, until retiring in 1968. He wrote the classic Canadian novel As for Me and My House. Appreciation of his work did not arrive until late in his life. Abroad for twelve years, in Spain and Greece, Ross returned to Canada's west coast in 1980, living in Vancouver until his Parkinson's related death.

Although not Canada's most read author, he is perhaps the country's most canonised writer. Critiques published just after id death and is posthumous "outing" seek to examine his work with specific attention to machinations of the writings' ambiguity, especially as such imputation underscores quereness and, particularly, homosexuality.