[3] Ray comes from a musical family; his parents Chris and Angie had their own country band called Itchy Feet.

[4] In 2014, Ray successfully auditioned for the sixth season of The X Factor Australia, singing "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes.

For the first bootcamp challenge, Ray was placed into a group with three other contestants from the Boys category to perform a song together for the judges.

[6] Ray made it to the second bootcamp challenge, where he performed "Yellow" by Coldplay to the judges and a live audience of one thousand.

In week nine, he was in the bottom two for the first time with Caitlyn Shadbolt and performed Johnny Cash's version of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" in the final showdown.

[10] During the grand final decider show on 20 October 2014, it was announced that Ray was runner-up to Marlisa Punzalan.

[25] Ray's self-titled debut album was released on 21 November 2014 and features studio recordings of selected songs he performed on The X Factor.

[citation needed] On 17 March 2015, Ray released an acoustic cover of Jake Bugg's "Me and You" as his second single.

[32] In March 2016, it was speculated that Ray had been dropped by record company Sony Music, along with other X Factor finalists Reigan Derry, Marlisa Punzalan and Nathaniel Willemse.