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Keane, booed throughout a lively encounter, had clashed previously with Jason McAteer and when he elbowed his Republic of Ireland international colleague, referee Uriah Rennie was left with no option but to brandish the red card.
England skipper David Beckham and Phil Neville, already booked early in the second half, were fortunate not to join Keane for an early bath following rash challenges on Phil Babb and Matthew Piper respectively.
To complete United's misery, Tore Andre Flo cancelled out an early strike from Ryan Giggs to suggest he could be the answer to the Black Cats' goalscoring problems.
The £8million signing from Rangers was on hand to bang the ball into the back of the net after Laurent Blanc had saved on the line with his hands from McAteer.
But most of the chances fell at the other end with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer guilty of squandering two great chances before he linked up with Beckham to create the opening for Giggs to beat Thomas Sorensen from close range.
Roy Carroll made a superb save to deny McAteer but Juan Veron, Blanc and Ruud van Nistelrooy all had golden opportunities to put the game beyond the reach of the home side.
They duly paid the penalty as Sunderland piled on the pressure and Flo's debut goal was no more than the giant striker deserved.
Sorensen denied van Nistelrooy with a brilliant save following a Babb mistake and the Danish keeper also kept out a close-range effort from Beckham.
Sunderland manager Peter Reid hailed his team's spirited performance and also confirmed the reason for newcomer Marcus Stewart not being involved was because his wife is expecting a baby at any time.
"We showed Manchester United too much respect in the first 25 minutes,'' said Reid.
"We stood off them but once we started to get at them we improved.
"I said at half-time let's give it a go and all in all I think the crowd enjoyed it.
The game got a bit lively and while I didn't see the sending off incident, you can't raise your hands on a football pitch.''