While still in his third year of college, Aaryan made his acting debut with Luv Ranjan's buddy film Pyaar Ka Punchnama (2011), co-starring Divyendu Sharma, Raayo S Bakhirta, and Nushrat Bharucha, which revolves around the romantic tribulations faced by three young men. He found a casting call for the film on Facebook and secured the role after auditioning for six months. As he had limited financial means at that point, he lived in an apartment with 12 other aspiring actors and earned money by cooking for them. In Pyaar Ka Punchnama, his character's four-minute monologue was one of the lengthiest single shots done for a Hindi film to that point. Reviewing it for Rediff.com, Shaikh Ayaz found Aaryan's "bursting soliloquy on why women are the way they are and can never be understood [to be] riotously funny". Namrata Joshi of Outlook criticised the film for portraying each of the female characters as a "hard-hearted bitch" but was appreciative of Aaryan's monologue and the chemistry between the three men. The film emerged as a sleeper hit and he received a nomination for the Producers Guild Film Award for Best Male Debut.
His next film release came two years later when he collaborated once again with Ranjan and Bharucha in the romance Akaash Vani (2013), which is about the titular lovers who are separated when Vani is married off to an abusive husband. Sudhish Kamath of The Hindu praised the film for exploring chauvinism in India, a rare concept for Hindi film, and praised the chemistry between the two stars, writing that "you can tell how much they are in love, even when they don't have any lines". Sudhir Chaudhary, the cinematographer in Aaryan's previous films, showed his work to Subhash Ghai, who was impressed by Aaryan and cast him in his directorial Kaanchi (2014). It is a drama about a woman's quest for justice when her husband is murdered by politicians, in which Aaryan played the love interest of the title character (played by Mishti). Despite a brief role, Aaryan agreed to the project to work with Ghai. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV disliked the film but wrote that Aaryan "exudes strong screen presence and shows flashes of qualities needed to be a mainstream Bollywood lover boy". Both Akaash Vani and Kaanchi did not perform well commercially, leading Aaryan to question his career prospects.
In 2015, Aaryan starred in Ranjan's comedy sequel Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2, which retained some of the original's cast, including him and Bharucha, and added the actors Omkar Kapoor and Sunny Singh. In it, he delivered an even longer, seven minute single-shot monologue. Mike McCahill of The Guardian criticised the film's poor handling of female roles, but considered the banter between Aaryan and Bharucha's characters to be its highlight. Shubha Shetty-Guha of Mid-Day too took note of the misogynistic themes but found parts of it "uproariously funny". When asked about the sexism in the film, Aaryan said that as a proponent of gender equality his character did not reflect his personal beliefs. With earnings of over against a budget of , Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 emerged as a major financial success. For his performance, Aaryan won a Stardust Award for Best Actor In A Comic Role.
The following year, Aaryan featured as a young Muslim boy who falls in love with an older woman in Tanuja Chandra's short film Silvat, which was made as part of the Zeal For Unity initiative to bridge cultural barriers between India and Pakistan. As he enjoyed working in comedies, Aaryan next starred alongside Paresh Rawal and Kriti Kharbanda in Guest iin London (2017), which is about a young couple troubled by unwelcome guests. A few scenes between Rawal and him were improvised on set. In a scathing review, Rohit Vats of Hindustan Times criticised the film's reliance on flatulence humour, and wrote that Aaryan "looks good, dances well, does his gags well, but eventually ends up playing the second fiddle to Rawal. Kartik has a likeable vibe, but that gets drowned in Rawal's perennial farting." It did not perform well commercially.
