[8] Gilmour participated in, among other activities, a botched car hijacking in which a friend, Colm McNutt, also an INLA member, was shot dead by an undercover soldier.
Most of these operations were "shoots" or sniping attacks, but on only one occasion, in January 1981, did his activities result in the death of a British soldier who was shot and killed at Castle Gate, near Derry's city walls.
[11] Gilmour claimed that he helped to foil many other IRA attacks, saving the lives of numerous police officers and soldiers.
In November 1981, he was arrested by the RUC, along with two other IRA members, on their way to carry out a shooting attack on riot police, who were combating disturbances arising out of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike.
The following year, Gilmour gave evidence in a special Diplock Court, jury-less trial against the 35 people he had incriminated.
He states that of the IRA and INLA members he knew, almost half were dead or missing by the end of the conflict.
[19] In 2007, Gilmour publicly voiced his desire to return home to Derry, asking Martin McGuinness for assurances of his safety.
[19] McGuinness stated that if de facto exiles such as Gilmour wanted to return home, it was a matter for their own judgment and their ability to make peace with the community.
[19] Gilmour's former RUC handler advised him not to return, citing the 2006 murder in Glenties, County Donegal, of Denis Donaldson, a high-ranking Sinn Féin politician and activist who was revealed to have been a long-term informer.
[22] Following his death, Gilmour's friend, Martin McGartland, also a British spy who had infiltrated the IRA, and who survived a serious assassination attempt, said, "It is disgraceful that Ray died in these circumstances.