After joining the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1981, Ravi Solanki served for 13 years in the cadre of Assam-Meghalaya, MHA and Cabinet Secretariat. He joined the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in1994. He worked for 27 years in the United Nations and UNHCR. He spent the last two years in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)s Regional Bureau for Asia & Pacific in Bangkok, covering 22 countries, notably Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Iran, China and Central Asian Republics.
He has travelled extensively and visited Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Malaysia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Syria, Israel, Morocco, Egypt, Iran, Azerbaijan, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana and the USA.
He has a working knowledge of Serbo-Croat and Russian languages.