Ruggiero joined the Bonanno family organization as a young man, serving as a street soldier under caporegime Michael Sabella. Ruggiero soon became successful in bookmaking, extortion and loansharking rackets. Ruggiero was a 6-foot tall (1.8 m), lean-bodied man with a narrow face, intense eyes, slightly stooped shoulders and a cigarette-raspy voice (likely due to chain-smoking English Ovals cigarettes).