After attending Ohio Wesleyan University, Christopher portrayed the role of Nikolas from 1996 to 1999, at first under his birth name, Tyler Baker, and later under his stage name, Tyler Christopher. When he left the show, the role of Nikolas was recast with the actor Stephen Martines. Christopher returned to the show in 2003. He was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2005. From 2004-2005, he also played the General Hospital character Connor Bishop.

Christopher has guest starred on The Pretender and has also made guest appearances on Charmed and Angel, CSI: Las Vegas and in 2005 took part in Steven Spielberg's television mini-series Into the West. In 2000, Christopher starred as the lead in the independent feature Face The Music, released by New Line on DVD in June, 2006.

Christopher was engaged to former General Hospital co-star Vanessa Marcil in the late nineties, married to former The Young and the Restless star Eva Longoria from 2002 to 2004 and dated his General Hospital co-star Natalia Livingston from 2004 to 2005. In November of 2005, he stumbled on a fireplace hearth at a restaurant and injured his arm, which required surgery (no cast was needed)and miss both a week of work and ABC's Super Soap Weekend at Disney World in November 2005. He was temporarily replaced by actor Chris Beetem for six shows in December 2005. He reconciled with Livingston during this time as announced in Soap Opera Digest in early 2006.

Christopher is of partial Native American heritage (both his parents have Indian heritage)[1] and was nominated by the NAACP's Image Awards as Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Drama Series, beaten by Kristoff St. John. His ethnic background played a key part in his role as a half-white/half-Lakota in Into the West.

In 2003, Tyler started a theater group known as the 68 Cent Crew.

Tyler also made an appearance in the music video for Leann Rimes' new single "And It Feels Like". He plays Leann's love interest.