During the 1980s, he took part in antimilitarist and social movements. In 1991, he joined Iniciativa Canaria (ICAN), an organization which in 1993 merged with the Canarian Coalition (CC).
He was director general of the Sanitary Assistance between 1993 and 1995. In 1995, he was elected as general director of the Canarian Health Service.
In 2004, as the internal tensions within the Canarian Coalition became more evident, Román Rodríguez Rodríguez headed a faction critical of the coalition, forming a new political group called Nuevas Canarias. Nevertheless, in the Spanish Congress of Deputies, he continues to sit as a member of the parliamentary group of the Canarian Coalition.