Internationally, the song reached the top five in the Canada, Finland and on the United Kingdom Singles Chart, and peaked at number one in Croatia, Greece, Scotland, and Spain.

An accompanying music video for "Ray of Light" was directed by Jonas Åkerlund and shows scenes from different cities around the world, with Madonna singing the song in front of them.

Since 1996, Madonna went through a number of "life-changing experiences" which included giving birth to her daughter Lourdes Leon, gaining interest in Eastern mysticism and Kabbalah, as well as earning the title role of Eva Perón in the film adaptation of the musical Evita (1996).

Author Carol Benson noted that it was a "deeply spiritual dance record", with the crux of it based on Madonna's career, her journey and the many identities she had assumed over the years.

[22] In a review of the maxi CD single, Liana Jonas of the same website called the track a "wickedly good club song" and "sonically progressive yet listener-friendly".

[23] "The title track builds from another incongruously pretty guitar arpeggio into thumping rave anthem mode," Stuart Maconie wrote in a Q review of Ray of Light, "but always underscored with keen musical intelligence.

"[26] Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone in his review for the album as a whole, wrote that, alongside other tracks such as "Swim" and "Drowned World/Substitute For Love", Madonna is "positively ferocious" sounding on "Ray of Light".

Considine of The Baltimore Sun noted that Madonna's "newfound strength is particularly apparent in pulsing, rhythm driven tracks like ['Ray of Light'], which finds her soaring confidently at the top of her register on the busily percolating chorus, then whispering breathily on the brief, dream-like bridge".

[32] Idolator's Stephen Sears explained that Madonna's vocals throughout the album were a "game-changer", including on the song, as she strengthened her voice while working on her film Evita.

Madonna supplies the highs herself in some perfect moments: the extended, spiraling way she wails 'yea-ea-ears' at 3:27 or how her vocal spins out of control at 4:14, matched by Orbit's frenzied guitar work".

[39] "Ray of Light" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in September 1998, for shipment of 500,000 copies of the single across United States.

[59] The music video for "Ray of Light" was directed by Jonas Åkerlund, who had previously shot the controversial clip for the song "Smack My Bitch Up" (1997) by The Prodigy.

[65] During filming Åkerlund was accompanied by three of his Swedish employees, photographer Henrik Halvarsson, production designer Mattias Lindgren, and editor Max Vitali.

[62] Åkerlund remembered that one day after the filming he got a call from Mick Jagger for directing the new music video for The Rolling Stones, however he had to decline since "Ray of Light" consumed all his time.

[60] The clip starts with the rising of the sun and a man opening the curtains in his house, until it progresses into the Koyaanisqatsi inspired section, featuring time-lapse images of daily life, from people riding a subway, ordering food, bowling, and children in a classroom to sped-up city-scapes and freeways at night.

[33][69] Author Georges Claude Guilbert wrote in his book, Madonna as Postmodern Myth, that her "straggly, expensively unwashed look" was comparable to that of singer Alanis Morissette and to Venetian paintings.

The book recalled how Madonna "quickly grew tired of the Botticelli-Earth Mother phase" with subsequent singles being promoted with a new Asian inspired look.

[71] In the book Ex-foliations: Reading Machines and the Upgrade Path, author Terry Harpold commented about the time-lapse sequences, especially the image of a clock and its hands rotating past the hours.

He felt that the clip portrays the daily life as a futile attempt for survival, enhanced by another shot showing the sonogram of a fetus in utero, and a hamster running on a wheel.

[19] Pitchfork ranked the track as the 55th best song of the 1990s, describing it as "a Kabbalah-coded ode to divine femininity with a racing pulse, "Ray of Light" is body music for the embodied consciousness.

Joe Lynch from the publication asserted that the composition "gave radio its most joyous, ebullient and life-affirming dance banger... Yeah, the cool kids had been raving for years, but it took a trendsetting 39-year-old mom to crack open the top 40 for what was then called electronica's eventual pop takeover.

A religious group called the World Vaishnava Association (WVA) claimed that Madonna offended Hindus with the performance by wearing Hinduism symbols on her head.

The representative also said that because Madonna simulated a sexual act and wore a see-through tank top onstage while wearing the mark, she offended both Hindus and Yogis.

[96] However, the vice president of WVA claimed that "the Hindu community and Eastern spiritual seekers the world over should be happy for Madonna personally in terms of her genuine interest in enlightened life, and grateful to her for her sincere efforts to attract others to the same".

[99] In 2005, Madonna performed "Ray of Light" during the Live 8 benefit concert,[100] and a year later at the 2006 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California.

[110][111] Joe Lynch of Billboard praised Madonna as the track is "a tough one to sing, but she didn’t short shrift the audience with an abbreviated version", and noted that "her live vocals sounded fairly close to the original".

[116] In 2010, the Glee season 1 tribute episode "The Power of Madonna" featured "Ray of Light" playing in the background as the school's cheerleading team performed a complicated stilts routine.

[119] In the 2011 Family Guy season 9 episode "New Kidney in Town", main character Peter Griffin (Seth MacFarlane) is seen in the "Ray of Light" video after drinking Red Bull.

[120] In late 2012, American singer Adam Lambert performed a cover version on VH1 Divas, dancing through laser lights while donning a priestly black and white tunic.

[122] The campaign was reworked after the September 11 attacks; according to Stephanie Ferguson (director of the company's PC Experience Solutions Marketing Group), the tagline "Prepare to fly" was changed to "Yes you can" to sidestep new concerns about air travel.