The periodic ripple structures on wolfram and titanium surfaces are induced experimentally by linear polarized femtosecond laser pulses at small incident angles. The structural features show a material difference in the $s$- and $p$-polarized laser irradiation. The interspace between the ripples increases significantly for $p$-polarized laser irradiation when it exceeds a threshold angle, and the ripples’ periodicities are larger than the wavelength of the incident $p$-polarized femtosecond laser; however, no significant change in the period of the ripples is observed with increasing incident angle for $s$-polarized laser irradiation. To explain these phenomena we propose a resonant absorption mechanism, by which the experimental observations can be interpreted.