Daughter of Edward Leslie Vercoe, a Methodist minister of religion, and Thelma Alice Tickner, Margaret Ray completed her primary school education at Camberwell State School in Victoria. She completed her secondary education at Hamilton High School in Victoria and Devonport High School in Tasmania. She trained as a secondary school teacher in Victoria, gaining a Bachelor of Arts Degree ( Honours) and a Diploma of Education from the University of Melbourne. Her teaching appointments included:
Wangaratta High School 1956-57 and
Greythorn High School 1968-81.

On 31 August 1957 she married George Wilson Ray also a schoolteacher. They had a son and two daughters.

She was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly for the seat of Box Hill in 1982 and retained it until 1992. She was a member of the Standing Orders Committee of the Victorian Parliament, 1982-92.

Her community activities included:
secretary of the Blackburn Lake Primary School Committee 1964-69; women's registrar of the Victorian Amateur Gymnastic Association 1978, 1979; elder of the Uniting Church in Blackburn.

Sources used to compile this entry: Draper, W J (ed.), Who's who in Australia 1983, 24 edn, The Herald and Weekly Times, Melbourne, 1983, 960 pp.