Perry Clark Straw was born in Rensselaerville, New York to Baptist ministers George Mueller and Helen Straw. He was the third of four sons. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to a farm in Pennsylvania, where George Straw was pastor of a small congregation while operating the farm. Perry gave his life to the Lord at the age of six and rededicated himself to the Lord at the age of sixteen at a camp meeting near Charlottesville, New York. It was at this time that he first entertained the idea of doing Christian work full-time.

The Straw family moved back to New York in December of 1951, where George Straw spent the rest of his life as a pastor. During his teenage years, Perry bought a short-wave radio and began listening to missionary radio station HCJB from Ecuador. He felt called to enter missionary radio. He was accepted at Southeastern Bible College in Alabama, from which he graduated in 1957. While attending Southeastern, Straw worked at the very small WSFM Christian radio station of Birmingham as an intern.

Straw enrolled at Moody Bible Institute (MBI) in Chicago for further training in radio work, and entered there as a post-graduate student in August of 1961. He was expelled for failing a Spanish course from which he had actually withdrawn. A friend offered him a job at Beneficial Finance and Management, Inc., where he worked from 1962 to 1964. As soon as he arrived in Chicago, Straw became involved with the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, largely because of the stories he had heard for years about the Tabernacle's previous ministry under Paul Rader.

In November of 1961, Straw left his position at Beneficial and was hired by Charles Christensen for the staff of radio station WMBI, at first part-time but very shortly afterwards full-time. In 1971, Straw became the administrator of the Broadcasting Services department for the Moody Radio Network. He was appointed director of Broadcast Services in 1988, which included overseeing the networks computer development.

Straw was married to Lorraine. They had two children: daughter Naomi, and son Perry.