Irani's father Jimmy Irani arrived in Bolton from Bombay in 1961 to play a summer's club cricket. During that summer he met 16-year-old Lancastrian Anne Main. The two married and had a son, Ronnie. Jimmy Irani was an enthusiastic, successful and prolific club cricketer with Daisy Hill in the Bolton Association who often put up overseas players, such as Farokh Engineer and Javed Miandad, during Ronnie's childhood.

He started his career playing for Lancashire in 1990, before he moved to Essex in 1994. At Essex, he gained cult status, before he became captain in 2000, and is generally accepted to have done a decent job in charge, helping to bring through promising players such as Alastair Cook, Will Jefferson and Ravi Bopara. After Graham Gooch stepped down as the club's head coach prior to the start of the 2005 season, Irani assumed some of these responsibilities in addition to his role as county captain.

In June 2007, he rejected a new contract with Essex and announced his retirement from first-class cricket at the end of the 2007 season. He retired with immediate effect later that month.

Irani was awarded Fans' player of the series in Natwest Series 2002 featuring India and Sri Lanka for his allround performance. He scored 169 runs and took 8 wickets in the tri-series.

After his retirement, he took on a position at talkSPORT in 2007, where he co-hosted, until 2013, The Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast with former Scottish international footballer Alan Brazil. On this show, he picked up the nickname Chicken from the dish Chicken Biriyani rhyming with his surname. Following Irani's appointment, the show's audience increased, reaching 1.2 million listeners by May 2008. During his time at talkSPORT, Irani also appeared as a guest on the BBC quiz sho