Rangers are a great class with great skillset. Too bad their class powers suck and you need to know how to play with them. Not for beginners IMO.
I would suggest you to try paladins or beast fighters early on. They are good tough melee classes who start with healing skill. For race I recommend dwarves. They are good race for almost any class and they got 'detect traps' skill which should help you out with your trap problems.
For talents you should probably take 'hardy' and then 'tough skin' talents which give you PV. With dwarf you should be able to build tanking power early on and you should be able to continue exploring the game with semi-powerfull character. But dont get reckless.
/edit: And oh! Almost forgot! If you are planning to use beast fighters dont use any weapon. They fight unarmed just like monks. And they are good at it!