Ray Streater was born on 21 April 1936 in Three Bridges in the parish of Worth, Sussex, England, United Kingdom, the second son of Frederick Arthur Streater (builder) (1905-1965) and Dorothy Beatrice Streater, née Thomas (17 December 1907 - 16 December 1994). He married Mary Patricia née Palmer on 19 September 1962, and they had three children: Alexander Paul (1963); Stephen Bernard (1965); Catherine Jane Mary (1967).

Professor Streater's career may be summarised as follows.

• Jan.-Sep. 1960 – Research Fellow, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
• 1960-1961 – Instructor in Physics, Princeton University, NJ, USA
• 1961-1964 – Assistant Lecturer in Physics, Imperial College, London
• 1964-1967 – Lecturer in Physics, Imperial College, London
• 1967-1969 – Senior Lecturer in Mathematics, Imperial College, London
• 1969-1984 – Professor of Applied Mathematics, Bedford College, London
• 1984-2001 – Professor of Applied Mathematics, King's College London
• Oct. 2001 on – Emeritus Professor, King's College London

Streater co-authored a classic text on mathematical quantum field theory, reprinted as

PCT, Spin and Statistics and All That (written jointly with Wightman, A. S.), 2000, Princeton University Press, Landmarks in Mathematics and Physics (ISBN 0-691-07062-8 paperback); first published in 1964 by W. A. Benjamin. The title is an homage to 1066 and All That.

He has also become interested in the dynamics of quantum systems that are not in a pure state, but are large. This is expressed in

Statistical Dynamics: A Stochastic Approach to Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics, 1995, Imperial College Press (ISBN 1-86094-002-1 hardback, ISBN 1-86094-004-8 paperback). This work was simplified and extended in the second edition, published in 2009.

• Professor Streater's page at King's College, London (Archived May 21, 2013, at the Wayback Machine)