We can refresh a ListView or GridView by vertical swipe using SwipeRefreshLayout class. The SwipeRefreshLayout should be used whenever the user can refresh the contents of a view via a vertical swipe gesture. We need to add an OnRefreshListener that notified whenever the swipe to refresh gesture is completed.
To start the progress animation we need to call setRefreshing(true) and to disable the progress animation we need to call setRefreshing(false).
In order to add the SwipeRefreshLayout in a ListView:-
1) Create layout like this:-

<android.support.v4.widget.SwipeRefreshLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/swiperefresh"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <ListView
        android:id="@+id/list"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent" />

</android.support.v4.widget.SwipeRefreshLayout>

2) Now in the activity class, set OnRefreshListener on the instance of SwipeRefreshLayout

swipeRefreshLayout.setOnRefreshListener(new SwipeRefreshLayout.OnRefreshListener() {
            @Override
            public void onRefresh() {
                updateList();
            }
        });

3) You can do any background task in the UpdateList() method, in this example I am just showing the progress animation for 5 second.

 private void updateList() {

            new Thread(new Runnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                    try {
                        Thread.sleep(5000);
                    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }
                    MainActivity.this.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                        @Override
                        public void run() {
                            // to stop the animation
                            swipeRefreshLayout.setRefreshing(false);
                        }
                    });
                }
            }).start();
    }

Note:- The progress animation automatically starts when we setOnRefreshListener. If you want to start manually then call setRefreshing(true).
Similarly we can add the SwipeRefresh Listener on GridView