Meyer was born in Madison, Wisconsin. He began his journalism career as a student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, serving as editor of The Daily Cardinal and as a campus correspondent for the Milwaukee Journal, and later editing a university literary magazine. He went on to earn an MPA from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and later a PhD in politics at Princeton.

After graduating in 1956, he moved into foreign affairs reporting at The Washington Post and also wrote a weekly “Letter from America” column for the New Statesman. He won recognition for his Latin America coverage and interviewed Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra during the Cuban Revolution. From 1965 to 1970, he ran the Post’s London bureau and covered major events including the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; he later led the paper’s New York bureau.

Meyer later wrote about television and served as a contributing editor at The Saturday Review (1975–1979) and Archaeology (1999–2005). He joined The New York Times editorial board in 1979 and remained until 1998 as a senior foreign affairs writer, also contributing to the “Arts and Ideas” section. After retiring, he became editor of the World Policy Journal until 2008, then editor emeritus.

He also held visiting teaching roles at several universities and served on or judged major awards and professional bodies, including Peabody and Pulitzer-related roles, and was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Association.