 He lectured at the Indiana University Bloomington in 1951 and at Columbia University 1962–1963.During his stay at Indiana University, he took iniative to establishing a permanent chair for Finnish studies.Ravila's interests included the languages of the Mordvins and the Sami people; his doctoral dissertation, "Das Quantitätssystem des seelappischen Dialektes von Mattivuono" (1932), was based on material he collected on expeditions in the 1930s.