Education
Ree did his early education in Hamhung, South Hamgyong, in what is now North of Korea. He attended the Hamhung #1 Public Ordinary School (함흥 제 1공립보통학교), and in 1934 entered the Hamhung Public High School (함흥공립고등보통학교). He went on to Keijō Imperial University, where he studied physics, graduating in 1944.
He then went to Fengtian, Manchukuo (today Shenyang, Liaoning in the People"s Republic of China) to work for an aircraft company.
Career
He contributed in the field of group theory, most notably with the concept of the Ree group in (Ree 1960, 1961). After the surrender of Japan and the end of Japanese rule in of Korea, he returned to his home country and in 1947 took up a teaching position in the mathematics department at Seoul National University. During the Korean War, he fled south to Busan, and in 1953 departed the country to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.