During Nazi rule, he saved the lives of several Austrian Jews by sheltering them in his apartment for a number of years.
Schoenberg's students included pianist Olga Novakovic and Hanns Eisler, with whom Ratz became friends.
During the period of Nazi rule, Ratz took in a number of Jews and hid them in his apartment, effectively saving their lives.
From 1949 to 1968 he was involved (from 1952 in a leading position) in the Austrian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM).
Ratz's explanation and expansion of Schoenberg's notions of the "basic idea" and the typology of themes (period and sentence) form the foundation of William Caplin's theory of formal functions.