Robert William Ray (born April 4, 1960) is an American lawyer. As the successor to Ken Starr as the head of the Office of the Independent Counsel (1999 to 2002) he investigated and issued the final reports on the Whitewater controversy, the White House travel office controversy, and the White House FBI files controversy. Before that he was Deputy Independent Counsel investigating former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy and before that Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.