Ralph Montgomery Muoio

Ralph “R” Muoio passed away suddenly on February 25, 2026, at the age of 58 from a cardiac condition.

R grew up in Washington, DC, where he attended St. Anselm’s Abbey School. After graduating from Columbia University, he spent several years in Paris as a professional cyclist and deepened his love of French literature at the Sorbonne. R then went to law school at the University of Virginia, where he met his wife, Wray. After a clerkship, R joined Covington & Burling and became an insurance coverage practitioner. During his nearly 30 years at the firm, colleagues and clients described him as thoughtful, able, and brilliant, but also unfailingly kind and considerate. He was known to be unusually adept at turning what looked like lost causes into winning ones.

R was well known in the DC-area cycling community as an accomplished racer, competing in road races for decades. Later in life, he developed a love of mountain biking and completed many 100-mile races that took his family from Leadville, CO, to Cascades, OR, and he rode annually in the Shenandoah 100. Many of his happiest hours were riding through the woods to mountaintops.

R also had a lifelong love of music, and played bass in numerous bands in DC and NYC. As one friend noted, he may be the only person to have played at CBGB and read all of Proust in French.

He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Wray, and his three children, Will, Weston, and Adele; his sister Anna Muoio (Zeke Brown); his brother Reid Muoio; his parents-in-law Jim and Mary Ann Johnson; his brother-in-law Hal Johnson (Carson); and his beloved nieces and nephews: Jack and Sarah Muoio, Lainey and Ava Brown, and Edward and Charlie Johnson.