He won the 1956 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for the year's best children's book by a British author, for Knight Crusader, the first in his so-called Carey Family series of novels.
Welch's final work, The Road to Waterloo, not strictly speaking part of the Carey family saga but closely connected to it in terms of subject matter, remained unpublished at the time of his death.
It was not until 2018 that it was discovered among his papers and published in a special edition by Smith Settle.
† indicates a book in the Carey family series Pamela Cleaver describes Ronald Welch as the best children's writer on military history and battles, adding that he does not glorify war but makes it clear that discomfort, wounds and death are as much a part of it as comradeship and adventure.
She characterizes his books as "extremely well-researched, full of authentic detail and always excitingly plotted".