Detective Sergeant Ray Carling is a fictional character in the BBC One sci-fi police drama Life on Mars, and its spin-off, Ashes to Ashes. He is played by Dean Andrews. Ray is portrayed as being in his late thirties or early forties. He is unmarried and regards himself as the ladies' man of the station.Little is disclosed about Ray's early life except that he grew up in the Manchester area.Ray started at CID and became Detective Sergeant under Gene Hunt. He applied for a promotion to Detective Inspector but his chances at being promoted were crumbled when Sam arrived at CID and became the new DI. This caused Ray to dislike Sam for stopping him being promoted. In A Conflict of Interests , Ray blamed Sam when a girl was murdered by Stephen Warren because Sam had stuck up to him whilst Ray took his bribes. In Wrongful Death , when Sam and Gene left for dinner Ray was put in charge, Gene told Ray that he wanted results, and so Ray forced the suspect to eat cocaine to force answers out of him as Ray believed this was a drug that induced the urge to tell the truth, Ray however realised the plan had backfired when the suspect died. Gene was furious that the suspect had died and put Sam in charge of an investigation to find out the truth. When Sam came up with the truth Ray was demoted to Detective Constable even though he said he was just following Gene's example.Ray was promoted back to Detective Sergeant by Gene shortly afterwards. In The Bombing , when an suspected IRA bomb was outside a school Sam claimed it could not be the IRA and it was a fake. Ray, wanting to be a hero, went to check it out but the bomb exploded, seriously injuring him. Ray came out of hospital badly injured and determined to find who had done this to him. Sam recognised that he had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and tried to warn Gene. Gene ignored Sam, and because of his PTSD Ray shot an innocent Irish man at the Irish centre. At the end of the episode Ray was taken hostage but was ultimately saved when Annie and Sam talked the hostage taker down.In Undercover , when CID found out that Sam was working with Morgan and C-Division Hyde, Ray said that he should have known it and that Sam was never truly one of them. Ray is shot in the raid on the train in this episode and starts to blame Sam, but seems to forgive him after Sam comes back to rescue the team.Ray, along with Chris and Gene, moved to London to work for the Metropolitan Police. In Nothing Changes , when a man who raped a prostitute gets off after his victim is too scared to testify Ray, feeling sorry for the woman, plants ten pounds of cocaine in the rapist's car boot to get him arrested.Ray Carling is an old-style police officer from the 1970s, demonstrating the homophobic and sexist attitudes of the time, which are reflected in his jokes and put-downs. He looks up to DCI Gene Hunt and they often have the same views on policing. Ray's lack of respect for DI Sam Tyler partly stemmed from his distrust of Sam's policing methods, but he also believes that he himself was earmarked for the DI position that was given to Sam.Ray frequently wades into a situation before thinking and this often leads to violence of some sort. For all his faults, however, Ray is loyal to his colleagues and is a team player.