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Jefferson Franklin Ray, Jr. was born to Baptist missionaries in Kobe, Japan in 1905. Ray attended Vanderbilt University from 1922 to 1923, before transferring to Yale College. He completed his B.A. at Yale in 1926 and studied philosophy and psychology at the Yale University School of Graduate Studies from 1926 to 1929. Ray worked as an investment counselor and as an administrator of several government agencies before assisting the American Ambassador to China and United States Army commanding generals in the Chinese, Burmese and Indian theaters during World War II. In 1945, Ray became assistant lend-lease administrator and chief of the Foreign Economic Administration's China division. From 1945 to 1947, Ray served as director of the Far Eastern Office of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and as acting director of the China Office in 1946. Over the next few years, Ray worked in various diplomatic capacities for the United Nations and the United States in Korea and China. Because of his associations with the Institute for Pacific Relations and his UNRRA policy, Ray was brought before the Economic Cooperation Administration's Review Board in 1949. Although Ray was found to be a loyal government employee, his career was severely damaged. From 1951 to 1953, Ray served as the chief of the Geneva Liaison Office of the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency. Ray returned to the United States, found work in business and retired in 1971. Ray died on February 22, 1991.

Acting director, China Office, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 1946-1947.

Jefferson Franklin Ray, Jr. was born in 1905 to Daisy Winston Pettus and Jefferson Franklin Ray, Sr., Baptist missionaries in Kobe, Japan. Ray was raised in Japan, but returned to the United States and attended Vanderbilt University from 1922 to 1923, before transferring to Yale University. He completed his B.A. at Yale in 1926 (Phi Beta Kappa) and studied philosophy and psychology at the Yale University School of Graduate Studies from 1926 to 1929. He worked as an investment counselor in New Haven and New York before becoming the assistant director of the Surplus Division of the Federal Commodities Association in 1934. Ray joined the staff of the New York City Employment and Resources for Emergency Relief Bureau in 1935 and was employed there for the next two years. After four more years working as an investment counselor and with the onset of World War II, Ray served as a special assistant to the American ambassador to China from 1942 to 1945, and as special staff officer to commanding generals in the United States Army in the Chinese, Burmese and Indian theaters from 1941 to 1945. In 1945, Ray became assistant lend-lease administrator and chief of the China division of the Foreign Economic Administration.

From 1945 to 1947, Ray served as director of the Far Eastern office of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and as acting director of the China office in 1946. He supervised allocations of relief supplies and assistance to China, reorganized and directed the program, and supervised personnel during a period of Chinese social upheaval and tense United Nations policy debate. UNRRA supplies were regularly denied to Communist-controlled areas and diverted to Nationalist-governed regions. Ray and hundreds of other UNRRA employees protested this strategy and sought to deliver relief supplies and support to all Chinese, despite international objections and frequent Chinese Nationalist blockades. Ray published his authorized history, The UNRRA in China, in 1947, detailing UNRRA's ambitions and evaluating its performance. In 1948, the Communist Chinese government awarded Ray the Special Cravat of the Brilliant Star for his humanitarian service as an UNRRA director.

Over the next few years, Ray worked in various advisory and administrative capacities in Korea and other East Asian countries. He was employed by the Department of State, the Committee for the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, the U.S. Educational and Informational Survey Mission to Korea, the United States Far Eastern Commission and the Economic Cooperation Administration's Mission to Korea. Because of his associations with the Institute for Pacific Relations and Alger Hiss, his popularity with Chinese Communists and support for distributing UNRRA supplies to Communist-controlled regions of China, Ray was brought before the Economic Cooperation Administration's Review Board in 1949. Ray was found to be a loyal United States employee, but his reputation was severely damaged. From 1951 to 1953, Ray served as the chief of the Geneva Liaison Office of the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency. After failing to secure government work commensurate with his diplomatic skills and experience, Ray found work in the United States as an investment counselor at Bache & Company, and then as a vice-president of Bayrock, an investment firm, before retiring in 1971

Ray married three times. Ray and Mary Sharretts Haamman were wed in 1934 and divorced in 1945. In 1946, Ray married Hilda Austern, a fellow UNRRA employee, who died in 1971. Later that year, Ray married Martha Henrietta Weinert, who died in 1976. J. Franklin Ray, Jr. died on February 22, 1991, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he had just begun a new career teaching Japanese to elementary school students. He was survived by his children: Jefferson F. Ray, III, Louis H. Ray, Lester A. Ray, Gerda W. Ray, and Anne C. Ray