Born in Philadelphia, Ray Thompson studied journalism and liberal arts at the Temple University. He additionally attended a variety of trade and art schools. He became a freelance cartoonist, and began contributing to the Philidelphia-based Saturday Evening Post, as well as the Ladies Home Journal, Country Gentleman, Life, Judge and Collier's. He was a pioneer in cartoon advertising, and did many national advertising campaigns.
Thompson additionally wrote scripts for radio plays and feature stories, while also ghosting on such strips as 'The Shadown', 'Roy Powers, Eagle Scout' and 'Connie' around 1935. In 1936, he created the the newspaper strip 'Myra North, Special Nurse' with artist Charles Coll. The strip appeared in 466 newspapers until 1941. He also did artwork on the 'Homer the Ghost' panel for the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate. He assisted A.E. Hayward on 'Somebody's Stenog', and worked on strips like 'Annabelle's Answers', 'Your Dreams' and 'Doodle Bug-Heads'.
As a commercial artist, he illustrated among others games and puzzles, and created the wrapper comic 'The Fleer Dubble-Bubble Kids', as an answer to 'Bazooka Joe' of the rivaling bubble-gum company. He drew a weekly cartoon for Tap and Tavern (trade publication for the liquor industry) which ran for 34 years (1942-1975). His cartoon 'Odd Job Ozzie' appeared monthly in Reading Railroad Magazine between 1927 and 1959. Later on, he focused on writing historic articles, mainly about the Revolutionary War.
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