Following a career specialising in low energy design, Ray left a position as Chief Architect to a large Metropolitan Authority in the North of England to join forces with fellow architect Jo Provan in 1980. The Practice was incorporated in 1996 and Jo retired in 2000.

Ray is a long serving member and past chairman of Manchester Conservation Areas and Historic Buildings Panel, an advisory body to Manchester City Council’s Planning Department, and previously Central Manchester Development Corporation, on all planning applications and policy documents affecting the City’s most vulnerable areas.

Ray is an expert on design which is both environmentally and ecologically sound and believes in the re-use of buildings where commercially justified.

He is also a founder member and past Chairman of Manchester Civic Society and was a founding trustee of the Ancoats Building Preservation Trust, a body committed to seeking the restoration of the City’s mainly redundant mills, as well as a founding Chairman of the Ancoats Urban Village Co.