She was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Gerald Ford in 1975, but resigned six months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.

As governor, she approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic energy.

She was promoted to assistant professor in 1947 and, five years later, received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship grant, which she used to undertake six months of postdoctoral research at Caltech.

[9] Intrigued by her reputation as a person who could "make science interesting," producers at KCTS-TV, Seattle's PBS member station, approached Ray about hosting a weekly television program on marine biology.

Trying to fit in a very small space with a large flatbed truck, she dented two cars, broke the taillight off a third, and finally vaporized the rear window of a fourth.Ray led the Pacific Science Center back into financial solvency.

[3] An advocate of nuclear power, in 1973 Ray was appointed by Richard Nixon to chair the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the recommendation of Senator Warren Magnuson.

[10][12] Following her appointment to the commission, news of her personal eccentricities began to emerge after reporters discovered she was living out of a 28-foot motor home, which was parked on a lot in rural Virginia.

[3] Each morning she was chauffeured from her RV to the AEC offices in Germantown, Maryland, accompanied by her 100-pound (45 kg) Scottish deerhound Ghillie and a miniature poodle named Jacques.

A profile by Graham Chedd in New Scientist explained that, Almost everyone found the eccentricities delightful, and preserved their macho with speculations of the mincemeat that would be made of her by such AEC "heavies" as Milton Shaw, head of the powerful division of reactor development, and Chet Holifield, the iron man of the congressional joint committee on atomic energy.

[14]However, less than a year after taking over, Ray had forced Shaw out, ordering that research and development be separated from safety programs as some environmental groups had demanded.

Ray would later fondly recall the first time she saw a nuclear warhead, describing it "like a piece of beautiful sculpture, a work of the highest level of technological skill.

"[2] During her time as commission chair, which lasted until the AEC was abolished in 1975,[15] Ray presented a 17-year-old Eric Lander with first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.

[16] In 1975, Ray was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by Gerald Ford, but resigned five months later, complaining about lack of input into department decision making.

[18] In another instance, she declared Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Shelby Scates, who had deluged her with tough questions on the campaign trail, would "learn what the words persona non grata really mean" after her election.

[10] Ray narrowly won the Democratic nomination over Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman, having spent almost no money on her campaign, having no experience in running for elected office, and having little support from the state's political class.

[10] Despite opposition from all major newspapers and predictions from pundits that the state was not ready "for an unmarried woman who gave herself a chainsaw for Christmas," Ray went on to win the general election with a victory over King County Executive John D. Spellman, 53%–44%.

As the first resident of the Governor's Mansion without a First Lady, Ray hired her elder sister Marion R. Reid to serve as her official hostess.

She approved allowing supertankers to dock in Puget Sound, championed support for unrestrained growth and development, and continued to express enthusiasm for atomic power.

[3] She likewise alienated the state's Republican establishment after she fired 124 appointees of her predecessor, three-term governor Daniel J. Evans, offering to send them "a box of kleenex with their pink slips.

Local television reporter Paul Boyd once interviewed the governor while she was dressed in "a ratty Ban-lon sports shirt, sweat pants covered with dog hair, red socks, and tennis shoes.

[25] The emergency decree was followed, on April 30, by the declaration of a "red zone" in southwestern Washington where public access would be banned and relocation of the population would be compelled by state troops, if necessary.

[26] At the same time, however, Ray was criticized for establishing a parallel "blue zone" where the public was generally banned, but Weyerhaeuser loggers were permitted.

In the weeks leading up to the fateful event, Ray flew to the mountain in the governor's plane, circling the peak and remarking, "I've always said I wanted to live long enough to see one of our volcanoes erupt.

The level of devastation caused by the ensuing ash cloud, earthquakes, electrical storms, and flooding was unprecedented and, the following day, Ray invoked her emergency powers to postpone local elections, which had been scheduled for May 20.

[30] Ray ran for reelection in 1980, enlisting Republican consultant Montgomery Johnson to head her campaign after her former manager, Butterworth, had defected to her rival, then-State Senator Jim McDermott.

She lost to McDermott in a contentious Democratic primary election, 56%–41%, during which bumper stickers emblazoned with "Nixy on Dixy" and "Ditch the Bitch" became popular campaign tchotchkes.

In one of those books, Trashing the Planet, she described environmentalists as "mostly white, middle to upper income and predominantly college educated ... they are distinguished by a vocal do-good mentality that sometimes cloaks a strong streak of elitism that is often coupled with a belief that the end justifies the means."

[34] Ray's papers, totaling 190 boxes of records and memorabilia spanning her career, are in deposit at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.