John Ray was born in Chelsea, London, the first child and only son of Dr William Ray, MBBS Adel (1906) BSc (Oxon (1909) and Mona Carleton Ray (née Parker). Just before the Great War William, who had been studying pathology at Oxford, returned with his family to Adelaide where he practised as a physician and became a university teacher.

Educated at St Peter’s College, Adelaide and the University of Adelaide, John finished second in the year in each of the fifth and sixth years of his course and was awarded the Lister Medal in 1935. He was a Resident and Medical Registrar at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and and then was apointed Acting Medical Superintendent of the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1938.

He married Dr Margaret Eleanor (Peg) Mackay (MBBS Melb) at Scots Church, Collins Street, Melbourne on 4 March, 1939. She was the youngest daughter of Rev JH Mackay and a sister of Dr Kate Mackay, a Foundation Fellow of the RACP (qv). They had four children and eight grandchildren. The marriage was dissolved in the 1960s and he married again. There was no issue of the second marriage.

Enlisting in the Second AIF in 1940, John was commissioned as a captain in the Medical Corps, initially in the 2/5 Field Ambulance. He served in the Middle East (including the siege of Tobruk), Australia, New Guinea and Bougainville. His initial voyage overseas was on the Mauretania, before her conversion to a troopship, so he and Dr Don Cameron (later a Menzies’ Government Minister for Health) shared the honeymoon suite, with first class stewards and service. Selected for training as a physician John was transferred to the 2/2 Australian General Hospital and obtained his MRACP in 1944. He was discharged late in 1945, with the rank of major.

John purchased a medical practice in South Yarra, where he practised until just before his death. He serviced many of the local institutions, including Melbourne Grammar School. He initially practised on his own (with his wife’s support) then took on various professional partners: Darrell O’Donnell, John Gallent, Noel Kinny and Gordon Nell. He was an associate to the in-patient physician at the Alfred Hospital and sometime acting out-patient physician between 1946 and 1952. He was admitted as a Member of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners soon after the College’s national inauguration in 1958. John was admitted as a Fellow of the RACP in 1975.

A more unusual aspect of his medical practice was to be the physician chosen to accompany the then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser on each of his many overseas trips as PM between 1975 and 1983. In contrast to Lord Moran and his book on his patient, Winston Churchill, John remained properly tight-lipped about his prime ministerial patient.

A keen sportsman at school, university, in the army and afterwards, he was wicketkeeper and captain of the Adelaide University cricket team, represented South Australia in baseball, played baseball for Hawthorn-East Melbourne (when baseball was the curtain-raiser for VFL games) and was a regular Wednesday afternoon golfer at the Metropolitan Golf Club for many years. He retained a life-long interest in the Hawthorn Football Club, being assistant medical officer at the time they won their first premiership.
In 1957, not long after television arrived in Australia, John Ray began presenting a weekly “Family Doctor” program on Thursday afternoons on GTV 9 in Melbourne. This he was able to do using his own name, after protracted correspondence with the AMA (then the BMA), which previously had refused to allow a doctor to use his own name in such arenas, as it was perceived as “advertising”. This program ran for many years and more than 250 segments. His wife also had a program on GTV 9, called “The Children’s Doctor” on Sunday afternoons. In 1958, John also began “Your Family Doctor”, a bi-weekly talk on a number of country radio stations, which also ran for many years. For some years he wrote a weekly piece in the Age, entitled “Consulting Room” under the name of “Dr Harley Collins.”

John died in Melbourne and was cremated at Springvale, after a service at St George’s Anglican Church, Malvern. He was survived by his children Andrew, Katren, Paul and Ross and their children. None of his children followed their parents into the medical profession.