In 1939 Ray was working in "The Manchester Guardian's" London office. On the outbreak of the Second World War he was appointed as one of the paper's war correspondents, first with the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla in the Channel, and then covering the North Africa landings in 1942 and the Eighth Army's Italian campaign. On one occasion, with no authority whatever, he assumed temporary command of a Canadian platoon in Italy when its officer and senior NCOs had been put out of action. He was mentioned in dispatches. In 1944 he moved to the BBC as correspondent with the American airborne assault on Nijmegen and with the Third Army push into Germany. There, too, he displayed conspicuous courage, and received an American army citation.