Bray was born to homesteading parents in Kalispell, Montana. The family moved to Seattle, Washington, where Bray attended Lincoln High School. After graduation, he was for a time a lumberjack, a Cowboy, and a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1942, Bray joined the United States Marine Corps and saw action in the South Pacific during World War II. He finished the war at the rank of master sergeant and then aspired to become a taxidermist or the owner of a hunting/fishing lodge.

Instead, Bray entered films in 1946 under contract to RKO. He was marketed as the "next Gary Cooper" but appeared in B Westerns like 1949's Rustlers. In the 1950s, the then freelancing actor appeared in a varied number of roles including the 1952 episode "Thunder Over Inyo" of the syndicated western television series The Adventures of Kit Carson.

In 1954, he portrayed bandit Emmett Dalton in an episode of Jim Davis's syndicated western Stories of the Century. That same year, he guest-starred in Reed Hadley's CBS crime drama, The Public Defender. On December 4, 1955, he was cast as petroleum pioneer Pattillo Higgins in "Spindletop – The First Great Texas Oil Strike (January 10, 1901)" on the CBS history series, You Are There, the story of the origin of the Texas oil industry.

Bray was cast as Carl the Bus Driver in Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe (1956) and as detective Mike Hammer in My Gun Is Quick (1957). Other roles were on NBC's western anthology series, Frontier and on Rod Cameron's syndicated series City Detective and State Trooper.

In 1958, he starred in Never Love a Stranger, a film adaptation of a Harold Robbins novel that also featured Steve McQueen.

Bray guest-starred in the episode "Obituary" of NBC's western series, Jefferson Drum, starring Jeff Richards, and in the 1959 episode "The Trouble with Tolliver" of the ABC western drama, The Man from Blackhawk, starring Robert Rockwell as a roving insurance investigator. Vaughn Taylor was cast in the title role as Jeremy Tolliver.

He starred in three episodes of NBC's western Laramie between 1960 and 1963. He appeared in three episodes of CBS's Perry Mason. In 1959 he played Private Detective and murder victim Carl Davis in "The Case of the Foot-Loose Doll." In the 1962 episode, "The Case of the Angry Astronaut," he had the role of title character and defendant Mitch Heller; and in 1963 he portrayed wealthy murder victim Martin Walden (Episode 180, "The Case of the Potted Planter"). He also guest-starred in NBC's Temple Houston (TV series), Overland Trail, and The Loretta Young Show. He appeared in four episodes of CBS's anthology suspense series Alfred Hitchcock Presents between 1958 and 1961. In 1958, Bray was offered a supporting role in Director Joshua Logan's film adaptation of South Pacific, but he decided instead to star in low-budget films for Allied Artists. It was a strategic error in his career, for South Pacific became a smash success.

In 1964, Bray won the role of USFS Ranger Corey Stuart in Season 11 of Lassie because of his affinity for animals and their reciprocity toward him. Stuart, according to the plot, acquired Lassie after the former owners, the Martin family (played by Hugh Reilly, June Lockhart, and Jon Provost), moved to Australia. Lassie's life then grew more exciting with rescues and adventures in the national forest setting.In Season 12 Lassie went to color film, and for the following two season afterwards Ranger Corey Stuart and Lassie shared their adventures in living color with their TV audiences. On three episodes, Bray appeared with former child actor Bobby Diamond of NBC's Fury. In Season 15 (1968) Bray was written out of the series as a victim of a forest fire and his character was sent away to a hospital never to return. Bray was replaced by two younger rangers played by actors Jack DeMave and Jed Allan who billed themselves as "Lassie's godfathers" on the series.