Warin was the son and heir of Gerard de Lisle and his wife, Alice daughter and heiress of Henry de Armenters. His father died in 1288, when Warin inherited his many estates, chiefly centred on Kingston Lisle in Berkshire and Stowe-Nine-Churches in Northamptonshire. Within the next ten years, he had become a knight and from May 1298 to May 1319, he was summoned to provide military service for the King.

In 1303, Sir Warin was accused, with others, of theft and assault in Berkshire. Yet, five years later, he was considered law abiding enough to become a conservator of the peace in the town and University of Oxford. In July 1308, he reached the height of his career with his appointment as Keeper of Windsor Castle, a position he retained for the next eleven years. During this period, Windsor was the favourite home of King Edward II. The monarch spent most of his time at Manor Lodge in the Great Park, but his eldest son, the future Edward III, was born at the castle in 1312. In 1315, Sir Warin was also a commissioner of oyer and terminer in Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

Sir Warin was replaced at Windsor by the King's favourite, Oliver de Bordeaux, at a time of extreme unpopularity for the monarch, following the disastrous Battle of Bannockburn. It could not have been a popular move with De Lisle and when, in September 1320, he was accused of incitement to assault and murder and, further, of protecting the assailants at his manors of Kingston and Beedon in Berkshire, he must have decided it was time to act. The following year, he joined with Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and others against the King’s most hated favourites, the Despensers. They allied themselves with the monarch’s chief opponent, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and the next year, took up arms against the King, with Sir Warin as a knight banneret, at the Battle of Boroughbridge on 16th March 1322. It was a severe defeat for the rebels and Sir Warin was captured, condemned as a traitor, and executed at Pontefract. He was dragged by horses and hanged, being afterwards buried in the Church of the Black Friars there.

Sir Warin married Alice, sister and heiress of Henry Teyes Junior, Lord Teyes, and daughter of Henry Teyes Senior, Lord Teyes, who seems to have been over twenty years his junior. The couple had at least two sons together, Gerard and Warin. In 1334 his widow obtained leave to transfer his body and that of her brother, Henry (who was also executed and buried in the Carmelite Church in London) to Chilton in Wiltshire where her ancestors were buried and where chantries were founded. Though her husband's forfeited estates were given to the Despensers and others, she was allowed maintenance. In December 1326, she had a grant of the custody of Kingston Castle and other of her husband's manors and, in the March following, had a further grant of all the goods of her late husband and her brother, Henry. As all proceedings against Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and his adherents were annulled upon Edward III’s accession, the forfeiture of her brother, Henry, was presumably reversed and Alice would, according to modern doctrine, be held to have become Baroness Teyes. It was probably her brother-in-law, Sir John de Lisle, who at this time became Keeper of Windsor Castle, as her husband had been before him. In 1330, Alice received a general pardon and, two years later, obtained a charter for markets and fairs at Penzance and other manors in Cornwall, and, in 1336, a charter of free warren at Chilton (Wiltshire), Kingston Lisle (Berkshire) and elsewhere. She died on 2nd August 1347.