Raymond Filbert "Ray" Alvarado is a teenager from the Town of Paradise Valley, Arizona. He's Alex Mack's next door neighbor and childhood best friend, as well as being the only person other than Alex's sister Annie who knows about Alex's powers the entire time. Ray tends to be a bit foolhardy at times and can cause trouble, but Ray always means well and has come to Alex's rescue many times, including in the final episode, when he frees Alex from captivity in Paradise Valley Chemical Plant's hyperbaric chamber tube, breaking the thick glass tube with a large pipe, releasing her from captivity. Ray, like typical teenage boys, has a fascination with sports. He is one of Danielle Atron Junior High School's and later Paradise High School's top basketball players, a skilled baseball and softball player, as well as a runner. He even attempted to beat the record on Coach Rooney's Rooney Runabout his 8th Grade year (a record that was set by Danielle Atron Jr. High School alumni and then Denver Nuggets Power Forward LaPhonso Ellis, who the school's football field is named after). Ray is also an accomplished Saxophonist (although he regularly underestimates his natural musical talent, particularly when he's involved in competitive playing, such as the Danielle Atron Jr. High School talent show his 7th grade year).
Ray lives with his father, a single parent. His mother's whereabouts are never expressly mentioned in any episode (in the books, however, it is explained that she died when Ray was very young).
A running gag is Ray's habit of changing his "lifelong dream" almost constantly. Over the course of the series, he has expressed desires to be (among other things) an NBA basketball player, a Major League Baseball player, a professional musician, an NHL Hockey player, and (as Alex points out from when they were 8 years old) a sumo wrestler, but has always inevitably abandoned those dreams for new ones.
Raymond was played by Darris Love in the series.