How to put a string search with grep command into if statement?

Another option:

grep -qw -- "$users" "$file1"; in_file1=$?
grep -qw -- "$users" "$file2"; in_file2=$?

case "${in_file1},${in_file2}" in
    0,0) echo found in both files ;;
    0,*) echo only in file1 ;;
    *,0) echo only in file2 ;;
      *) echo in neither file ;;
esac

Try this:

if grep -wq -- "$user" "$file1" && grep -wq -- "$user" "$file2" ; then
   echo "string avail in both files"
elif grep -wq -- "$user" "$file1" "$file2"; then
   echo "string avail in only one file"
fi

• grep can search for patterns in multiple files, so no need to use an OR/NOT operator.

n=0

#Or if you have more files to check, you can put your while here. 
grep -qw -- "$users" "$file1" && ((n++))
grep -qw -- "$users" "$file2" && ((n++))

case $n in 
   1) 
       echo "Only one file with the string"
    ;;
   2)
       echo "The two files are with the string"
   ;;
   0)
       echo "No one file with the string"
   ;;
   *)
       echo "Strange..."
   ;;
esac 

Note: ((n++)) is a ksh extension (also supported by zsh and bash). In POSIX sh syntax, you'd need n=$((n + 1)) instead.