Ito was a dancer with the National Ballet of Canada before turning to acting in the mid-1960s, which led to a number of roles playing Asian or Asian-ancestry characters in American productions. He appeared three times (as different characters) in the 1970s TV series Kung Fu; first as a Chinese rail worker in the two-hour movie that launched the series, later as a Chinese bandit named Captain Lee in the episode The Way of Violence Has No Mind and another time as a Japanese Ninja in the episode entitled The Assassin