Ayub Khan was born on February 23, 1969 to Nasir Khan and Begum Para. He came from a family involved with film, as both his parents were actors, along with numerous other family members including his uncle Dilip Kumar. Thus, Ayub Khan too displayed an early interest in acting.

He began his acting career with the television movie, Trikon (1990), and then moved on to films two years later, with the lead role in Mashooq (1992). Khan worked consistently in films through the nineties, and acted in numerous films, one of his highlights being director Prakash Jha’s The Death Sentence: Mrityu Dand (1997), where he co-starred with Madhuri Dixit.

In the 2000s, while continuing to work in film with several supporting roles in films such as Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Gangaajal (2003), LOC Kargil (2003), and Apaharan (2005), Khan also re-entered the television industry. After a relatively unrecognized decade of being in films, television turned out to be the medium that would give Khan plenty of recognition and success.

Khan’s early TV projects include Muskaan (2000) and Karishma: Miracles of Destiny (2003). One of his major successes came when he began portraying one of the lead roles in Colors TV’s Uttaran (2008), a show that is still running on TV, and earned Khan much acclaim and recognition. He also won a number of awards for this show. His other ongoing serials include Ek Hasina Thi (2014), which first aired on Star Plus in April 2014.

Khan has often spoken about his shift in focus from film to television, and his belief in the fact that one medium is no less than the other. “The target of an actor is to be seen and appreciated, the medium doesn’t really matter. I think all these mental blocks about television and films are in the minds of the people."

Besides acting, Khan is passionate about politics. He is a supporter of the Aam Aadmi Party, and was offered a ticket to be the party’s representative from North-West Mumbai – something he had to turn down due to his prior commitments in television. At the time, Khan was working on Doordarshan’s Ek Tha Rusty II (2014), the second season of a television serial based on the short stories of Ruskin Bond.