Ralph Henry Byrne was born in Rathmines, Dublin, Ireland on 25 April 1877 and was articled for five years to his father William Henry Byrne in Dublin. He then worked briefly in the office of Thomas Edward Marshall in Harrogate England, before forming a partnership with his father as William H. Byrne & Son. Following the death of his father in 1917, he continued the business with the title of the firm unchanged.
In 1919 Byrne and fellow Dublin architect Thomas George Smith were commended for a design they entered in the Daily Mail Ideal Workers Homes Competition that year. It is unclear whether Byrne & Smith formed a formal partnership. In 1936 Byrne took his wife's nephew, Simon Aloysius Leonard into partnership.
Byrne was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (RIAI) in 1902, and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (FRIAI) in 1920. He was Vice-President of the RIAI in 1938. He was also elected a member of the Architectural Association of Ireland in 1906. He died at his home in Dublin on 15 April 1946.
For a detailed list of architectural projects by Ralph Henry Byrne see the Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720-1940
McDermott, M. J. ‘William H. Byrne and Son’. RIAI yearbook 1980 pp. 63–65