He was one of Hollywood's Native American movie actors along with Lillian St. Cyr, Jesse Cornplanter, Chief Yowlachie, William Eagle Shirt, and Will Rogers who also had successful careers during that time.

In 1921 an explorer, Captain Frank Kleinschmidt, ventured to Alaska on an expedition to produce Primitive Love, a film in which a 14-year-old Mala made his screen debut.

Ray Mala gained praise following Eskimo, and as a result MGM cast him as the lead in Last of the Pagans (1935), directed by Richard Thorpe and filmed on location in Tahiti.

Mala played the lead in Republic Pictures' Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island (1936), which was one of the first serials the studio made.

He worked with Academy Award winner Joseph LaShelle on many pictures, including Laura (1944), starring Gene Tierney, and Les Misérables (1952).

[3] Fifty years after his death, his remains were returned to Alaska, with a reburial ceremony in 2018 inside Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery.