Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. one shilling and sixpence.

1861

H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 319/1: ‘There is Dick’s first trial, and you must give him a “ray” for it,’ i.e. 1s. 6d.

2. in pl., money .

1866

Letters by an Odd Boy 160: Beans, blunt, brass, bustle, coppers, chinkers, chips, dibbs, mopusses, needful, ochre, pewter, quids, rays, rowdy, shiners, stuff, tin, and stumpy!