The France winger was making his first competitive appearance of the year, having recently been sidelined with a muscular problem, but looked as if he had never been away as he fired home a low shot just before half-time to put Bayern two ahead.
Mario Gotze set the European champions on their way to an 11th successive league win when he took a fine pass from Dante on his chest and unleashed a fine volley into the bottom-left corner of the net in the 12th minute.
Ribery then got in on the act as struggling Frankfurt failed to cope with Bayern's attacking prowess.
Gotze hit the post and Ribery was denied by the crossbar early in the second half, but Arjen Robben struck just two minutes after coming on with a clinical finish to increase Bayern's lead.
Brazil defender Dante headed a fourth goal and Mario Mandzukic took advantage of his return to the starting line-up by adding his name to the scoresheet late on, at the end of a week in which his future at Allianz Arena has been the subject of much speculation.
Bayern have now stretched their record unbeaten run in the league to 44 games and are 13 points clear of Bayer Leverkusen at the summit, while Frankfurt are just a point above the relegation play-off place.
In Sunday's other Bundesliga game, Josip Drmic scored twice for the second game in a row as resurgent Nuremberg secured a surprise 3-1 win at Hertha Berlin to climb out of the bottom three.
Drmic helped himself to a brace when Gertjan Verbeek's side claimed their first Bundesliga win of the season with a 4-0 thrashing of Hoffenheim last weekend.
And the Swiss forward was at it again, putting Nuremberg in front after 68 minutes and sealing the points with a late penalty after Daniel Ginczek had been upended by Marcel Ndjeng.
Adrian Ramos opened the scoring for Hertha after only four minutes with his 12th goal of the season, but Markus Feulner equalised 20 minutes in and Drmic then took centre stage to give the visitors their first away win of the league campaign.
