Evans was born to a Jewish family in Salamanca, New York, to Philip and Frances Lipsitz Evans. He was valedictorian of his high school class, where he played clarinet in the band. The Salamanca High School yearbook from 1931 states: "His original themes and brilliant oral talks are the despair of his classmates. Ray's quite a humorist, too. At times, his satire is positively killing." He received a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1936, writing a senior thesis on "The relation between the central bank, member banks and the money market."