Ramya's first Telugu film was Bhale Mithrulu (1986). She achieved fame through Kasinadhuni Viswanath's Sutradharulu, released in 1989. She emerged as a leading Actress in the Telugu industry alongside Soundarya, Meena, Roja and Nagma in the 1990s. As her breakthrough came from K. Raghavendra Rao directorial movies where she emerged as a commercial romantic diva of the season, due to successful movies such as Alludugaru (1990), Allari Mogudu (1992), Major Chandrakanth (1993) along with Mohan Babu and Allari Priyudu (1993) along with Rajasekhar. She played the role of a devoted wife of Sri Annamacharya, which was played by Nagarjuna in the blockbuster film Annamayya (1997). She has worked with leading Telugu actors such as N. T. Rama Rao, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Krishna, Chiranjeevi, Balakrishna, Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Mohan Babu, Jagapathi Babu, Rajendra Prasad, Srikanth, Rajasekhar, Jr. NTR, Mahesh Babu and Prabhas. She received a prestigious Nandi Award from the Government of Andhra Pradesh for her performance in Dasari Narayana Rao's film Kante Koothurne Kanu (1998). She played the lead role in the Bollywood action comedy film Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) along with Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda. She played the lead role in the Tamil film Padayappa (1999) along with Rajinikanth. She has also played role in Bollywood Movie "Banarasi Babu" in 1997