Considine was born to a show Business family. His mother, Carmen, was the daughter of theater magnate Alexander Pantages. His father, John W. Considine Jr., was an Oscar-nominated movie Producer (Boys Town, MGM 1938), and his grandfather, John Considine, was Alexander Pantages' rival vaudeville impresario.

In 1953, Considine costarred with Red Skelton in The Clown, a remake of the 1931 movie The Champ which costarred Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper.

Considine's most noted acting roles were in the 1955–1957 Disney TV serials Spin and Marty (he played Spin) and The Hardy Boys (he played older brother Frank opposite Tommy Kirk as Joe), both of which appeared in 15-minute segments on the Mickey Mouse Club; in the Disney show The Swamp Fox as Gabriel Marion, nephew of Francis Marion; in the Disney motion picture The Shaggy Dog; and as the eldest son, Mike Douglas, in the first years of the long-running television series My Three Sons, when it aired on ABC. In both The Shaggy Dog and My Three Sons, he starred with Fred MacMurray.

In 1957, Considine played the role of Ned Nickerson in a television pilot made for CBS based on the popular Nancy Drew series of books by Carolyn Keene. He co-starred with Roberta Shore and Frankie Thomas.

On December 31, 1959, his 19th birthday and before My Three Sons debuted, Considine appeared as Jamie Frederick in the episode "Bound Boy" on CBS's Johnny Ringo western television series, starring Don Durant in the title role. In the story line, a rancher is investigated for turning orphaned boys into virtual slaves.

The following year, Considine played the role of Franklin D. Roosevelt's eldest son James between ages 14 and 17, in the 1960 feature film Sunrise at Campobello. In one episode of The Fugitive he acted as a helper for Dr. Kimble. He also had a role in the 1970 film Patton, portraying one of two shell-shocked Soldiers slapped by General George S. Patton, Jr., who believes them to be cowards. The role is credited as "Soldier Who Gets Slapped". His first wife was Actress Charlotte Stewart who played Teacher Miss Beadle on television's Little House on the Prairie for four seasons.

As an adult, Considine is an automobile Historian, Photographer, and Writer who specializes in motor Sports. He is the author of The Photographic Dictionary of Soccer (1979, ISBN 0-446-87953-3), The Language of Sport (1982, ISBN 0-87196-653-0), and American Grand Prix Racing: A Century of Drivers and Cars (1997, ISBN 0-7603-0210-3). He has also filled in for the late william Safire as Writer of the "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine. On 11/21/65, he played in the Bonanza episode "The Reluctant Rebel".

In 2000, Considine and David Stollery, his co-star in the Spin and Marty serials, made cameo appearances in The New Adventures of Spin and Marty: Suspect Behavior, a made-for-TV movie on the ABC network. A DVD version of the Adventures of Spin & Marty was released in December 2005 as part of the fifth wave of the Walt Disney Treasures series. On the 50th anniversary of the serial's premiere, Considine and Stollery were interviewed by Leonard Maltin as a DVD bonus feature about their experiences filming the hit series.

On June 19, 2010, he participated in the My Three Sons 50th-Anniversary Reunion at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, California. Most surviving cast members appeared at the event except for Dawn Lyn, who was living in Germany at the time, and Don Grady, who prior to his death in 2012 was in Europe for that summer receiving treatment for cancer.