In the revolutionary movement of 1848, he organized the extreme left in the Frankfurt parliament, and for some time he lived in Berlin as the editor of the Die Reform.
The Prussian government intervened and Ruge soon afterwards left again for Paris, hoping, through his friend Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, to establish relations between German and French republicans; but in 1849 both Ledru-Rollin and Ruge had to take refuge in London.