He graduated from Yale University in 1934 and joined the United States Navy as a reserve officer, where he was assigned to the Naval Security Group. His commission was reactivated in 1940 and he rejoined the NSG, working on Japanese problems with Agnes Driscoll. After a brief period working on German ciphers, he returned to Japanese issues, and he was part of a group that systematically solved many of the low level codes starting in 1942. These were important as a source of cribs used in working the JN-25 fleet code. He also worked on the JADE and CORAL machines, both of which were successfully cracked.

After the war, he stayed on as a civilian employee of the NSG, joining the Armed Forces Security Agency in 1946 and moving on to NSA at its formation in 1952. From 1956 on, he held a series of executive posts within the agency, culminating in his appointment as Chief of the Office of NSA's training program where he played a major part in the development of two cryptology courses; these efforts won him several civilian awards.

In retirement, he established a firm for genealogical research and he was active there until his death in 1983.

• "Cryptologic Almanac 50th Anniversary Series: Francis A. Raven" (PDF). National Security Agency. 24 February 1998. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 September 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2013.

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II