Ray is a model student at Grace Field House Plant 3, who consistently gets perfect scores during the daily exams. He is also known for being an avid reader with high intellectual abilities, blunt skepticism, and cunning. Despite his distant disposition, Ray is able to interact well with the orphans and is fiercely loyal and caring to particularly Emma and Norman.

Being one of the smartest children living in Grace Field House Plant 3, Ray is considered to be one of the House's three "Premium quality goods" next to Norman and Emma.[9] Ray was born at Grace Field on January 15, 2034, to Isabella through artificial insemination. He was sent to Plantation 3 a year later in 2035.

Ray did not suffer from childhood amnesia, and such, he remembered his life before he arrived at the orphanage; including being in his mother's womb, having the transmitter stapled into his ear, the infants being divided into groups of five, and when he was sent to Plantation 3. As Ray grew up, he realized that there were inconsistencies between his own memories and the reality that spread before him in the orphanage, and eventually discovered the true purpose of the orphanage, the tests, the gates surrounding the orphanage, and the numbers on his neck, the transmitter inside their ears when he became literate.[10] With these newfound realizations, Ray started developing nightmares and intense feelings of guilt, pain, and loneliness. He was not able to seek help in anyone and had to watch as his siblings were shipped off, while he and his Mama were the only ones in the orphanage to truly know where they were going. He became depressed and stopped trying to find fake happiness, eventually becoming fed up with his burdens and bringing matters into his own hands. It’s shown that Ray cut open his ear to break the transmitter, alerting Isabella, and setting his deal with her into action. Knowing he would not be able to save everyone was another reason why he was so insistent about only escaping with a certain amount of people.

Due to their close age and probably the fact that they are the top students academically, Ray was exceptionally close to Emma and Norman. He thus mingled with the two often and created warm memories with them; such as talking with a sickly Norman through a tin can alongside Emma,[11] Emma and Norman getting his attention away from reading by making funny faces, and exploring the gate that encircles Grace Field House.[12][2]

On January 15, 2040, on Ray's sixth birthday, Isabella overheard Ray humming the same song that she had sung to her unborn child when she was pregnant. Ray then went to confirm with Isabella on the truth behind the orphanage and how he might be her biological son, a theory which he had been keeping to himself for some time. After knowing how his theory is indeed true, Ray made a trade with Isabella and became her spy.[13] In exchange for keeping an eye of the orphans from behind, Ray requested Isabella to give him certain gifts in return for being "good" to her. In actuality, Ray's gifts were actually part of the escape plan of his which he would make use of the gifts to make a certain device which could benefit in the escape. In addition, Ray's loyalty towards Isabella as her spy was actually all just an act, as this was Ray's way of benefiting from the enemy. About a year later when Ray was seven, he came up with the idea of setting himself on fire on the eve of his 12th birthday both as a way to distract Isabella so the other kids could escape and also as an act of revenge against the demons by robbing them of a "premium quality" meal.[14]

Ever since this incident, despite having no interest in reading and studying,[3] Ray purposely adopted the habit of reading, as a way to do well academically on his daily tests so he would be a top student in the orphanage (in order words, "premium quality" meat).[9] He also sought to read all the books that were available in the Grace Field library before turning twelve.[15] Ray also began working on developing the Transmitter-crippling device, coordinating an escape plan, as well as collecting lighting fuel from Isabella's gifts in order to use himself as a trump card and distract Isabella the time came, so he could help Emma and Norman to escape.[16] Ray is a slim boy of average height with somewhat messy short black hair, parted to the right so that the longer, chin-length clumps on his left obscure much of his face. Around the sides, it appears to spike upwards, following the shape of his head, and he also has triangular forest-green eyes with noticeably small black irises. He wears the standard Grace Field uniform- a plain white long sleeved button-up shirt and white pants along with brown boots. His identification number, "81194", is tattooed across the left side of his neck.

Ray appears to be aloof, introverted and snarky; often excluding himself from playing with the other orphans and prefers to read load of books instead.[2] However, he is able to interact well with his fellow siblings, loves them all deeply and occasionally will take part in a game tag or hide-and-seek with them. Even if there are times when they do not get along, he still deeply cares about their well-being and would go to great lengths to keep them safe. An outspoken person with little patience for inconvenience and silliness (like Emma's), he frequently loses his temper or is often left dumbfounded when people such as Emma display reckless behavior and intentions, noticeably when he considered Emma as an "airhead" when she intended to rescue every orphan from Grace Field.

Furthermore, he is very blunt and honest, as when Norman is trying to figure out a way to break it to Emma that Ray was the spy all along, Ray abruptly comes out with it before Norman has the chance. In some cases, he considers it a kindness to be blunt, rather than alleviate the truth or give people false hope. He was also motivated by cold logic and reason, and he figures the best plan for success is to take the smallest group possible, even if that group doesn't include himself. While he worked extremely hard for six years to make sure that Norman and Emma could escape safely, he had to sacrifice a great price, possibly his other siblings that were shipped out.

Ray's strengths are his cunning, sharp wits, and his manipulative nature. He is also rational, logical, and cynical. He is an academically inclined young boy who excels in the orphanage's daily tests, also using his intelligence to decipher problems and to come out with solutions. According to Emma, he's always the best at anything he tries. According to Norman, he is level-headed and precise in everything he does. He also always thinks ahead and finds the most optimal solutions to things.

According to the data Krone obtained, Ray is a person who makes plans too fast and gives up on them just as fast. This was specifically proven when after the plan of saving Norman got foiled, Ray lost hope and excluded himself from helping the others to devise another plan to escape.[17] Ray is also noted to be extremely self-sacrificing and audacious. He was driven to suicide via self-immolation and willingly did so to help aid in the escape. However, he also reveals to Emma that he wasn't going to go down like cattle and he would die as a selfish human. His little hesitation in throwing his life away stems from his past. Because he has known about the truth about the farms, the outside world, and his very own mother from a young age, Ray began deeming his life as "cursed" and therefore planned to die inside the orphanage. Additionally, after years of watching his siblings walk to their death without doing anything about it, Ray developed extreme guilt and felt like the only way he could atone was by dying himself.