[2] He attended Leeds Central High School, where he met his lifelong friend Graham Wilson.

He attended Bangor University and spent a year at an Anglican seminary before beginning a career in civil service.

British historians Michael Hunter, Miri Rubin, and Laura Gowing co-edited the book Love, Friendship and Faith in Europe, 1300–1800 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), a collection of essays inspired by Bray's idea of finding some universal component of homosexuality within the experiences of intimacy and friendship without "locating a discourse that identifies persons as homosexual.

"[3] Nick Rumens' Queer Company: The Role and Meaning of Friendship in Gay Men's Work Lives (Ashgate, 2011), is also inspired by Alan Bray's scholarship.

[4] Valerie Traub (Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns) is amongst many subsequent LGBTQ scholars who have engaged with and been inspired by Bray's scholarship.