diff --git a/tests/config/test_config_generation.py b/tests/config/test_config_generation.py
index 024e81fccc5..e37b6b95941 100644
--- a/tests/config/test_config_generation.py
+++ b/tests/config/test_config_generation.py
@@ -36,3 +36,36 @@ def create_config():
     assert deep_compare(normal_config_dict, empty_config_dict), (
         "Configs with normal CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES and CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=\"\""
         " should be equivalent")
+
+
+def test_ray_runtime_env(monkeypatch: pytest.MonkeyPatch):
+    # In testing, this method needs to be nested inside as ray does not
+    # see the test module.
+    def create_config():
+        engine_args = EngineArgs(model="deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V2-Lite",
+                                 trust_remote_code=True)
+        return engine_args.create_engine_config()
+
+    config = create_config()
+    parallel_config = config.parallel_config
+    assert parallel_config.ray_runtime_env is None
+
+    import ray
+    ray.init()
+
+    runtime_env = {
+        "env_vars": {
+            "TEST_ENV_VAR": "test_value",
+        },
+    }
+
+    config_ref = ray.remote(create_config).options(
+        runtime_env=runtime_env).remote()
+
+    config = ray.get(config_ref)
+    parallel_config = config.parallel_config
+    assert parallel_config.ray_runtime_env is not None
+    assert parallel_config.ray_runtime_env.env_vars().get(
+        "TEST_ENV_VAR") == "test_value"
+
+    ray.shutdown()
diff --git a/vllm/config.py b/vllm/config.py
index f038cdd64c6..08bd59be7c1 100644
--- a/vllm/config.py
+++ b/vllm/config.py
@@ -56,6 +56,7 @@
 
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from _typeshed import DataclassInstance
+    from ray.runtime_env import RuntimeEnv
     from ray.util.placement_group import PlacementGroup
     from transformers.configuration_utils import PretrainedConfig
 
@@ -73,6 +74,7 @@
 else:
     DataclassInstance = Any
     PlacementGroup = Any
+    RuntimeEnv = Any
     PretrainedConfig = Any
     ExecutorBase = Any
     QuantizationConfig = Any
@@ -1950,6 +1952,9 @@ class ParallelConfig:
     ray_workers_use_nsight: bool = False
     """Whether to profile Ray workers with nsight, see https://docs.ray.io/en/latest/ray-observability/user-guides/profiling.html#profiling-nsight-profiler."""
 
+    ray_runtime_env: Optional["RuntimeEnv"] = None
+    """Ray runtime environment to pass to distributed workers."""
+
     placement_group: Optional["PlacementGroup"] = None
     """ray distributed model workers placement group."""
 
diff --git a/vllm/engine/arg_utils.py b/vllm/engine/arg_utils.py
index aec75f82631..ba40262e538 100644
--- a/vllm/engine/arg_utils.py
+++ b/vllm/engine/arg_utils.py
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@
 from vllm.logger import init_logger
 from vllm.platforms import CpuArchEnum, current_platform
 from vllm.plugins import load_general_plugins
+from vllm.ray.lazy_utils import is_ray_initialized
 from vllm.reasoning import ReasoningParserManager
 from vllm.test_utils import MODEL_WEIGHTS_S3_BUCKET, MODELS_ON_S3
 from vllm.transformers_utils.utils import check_gguf_file
@@ -1060,6 +1061,15 @@ def create_engine_config(
             calculate_kv_scales=self.calculate_kv_scales,
         )
 
+        ray_runtime_env = None
+        if is_ray_initialized():
+            # Ray Serve LLM calls `create_engine_config` in the context
+            # of a Ray task, therefore we check is_ray_initialized()
+            # as opposed to is_in_ray_actor().
+            import ray
+            ray_runtime_env = ray.get_runtime_context().runtime_env
+            logger.info("Using ray runtime env: %s", ray_runtime_env)
+
         # Get the current placement group if Ray is initialized and
         # we are in a Ray actor. If so, then the placement group will be
         # passed to spawned processes.
@@ -1172,6 +1182,7 @@ def create_engine_config(
             max_parallel_loading_workers=self.max_parallel_loading_workers,
             disable_custom_all_reduce=self.disable_custom_all_reduce,
             ray_workers_use_nsight=self.ray_workers_use_nsight,
+            ray_runtime_env=ray_runtime_env,
             placement_group=placement_group,
             distributed_executor_backend=self.distributed_executor_backend,
             worker_cls=self.worker_cls,
diff --git a/vllm/executor/ray_utils.py b/vllm/executor/ray_utils.py
index 033ecc00853..7abaffa54c0 100644
--- a/vllm/executor/ray_utils.py
+++ b/vllm/executor/ray_utils.py
@@ -295,9 +295,12 @@ def initialize_ray_cluster(
             logger.warning(
                 "No existing RAY instance detected. "
                 "A new instance will be launched with current node resources.")
-            ray.init(address=ray_address, num_gpus=parallel_config.world_size)
+            ray.init(address=ray_address,
+                     num_gpus=parallel_config.world_size,
+                     runtime_env=parallel_config.ray_runtime_env)
     else:
-        ray.init(address=ray_address)
+        ray.init(address=ray_address,
+                 runtime_env=parallel_config.ray_runtime_env)
 
     device_str = current_platform.ray_device_key
     if not device_str:
diff --git a/vllm/ray/lazy_utils.py b/vllm/ray/lazy_utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..bb3535579cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/vllm/ray/lazy_utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright contributors to the vLLM project
+
+
+def is_ray_initialized():
+    """Check if Ray is initialized."""
+    try:
+        import ray
+        return ray.is_initialized()
+    except ImportError:
+        return False
+
+
+def is_in_ray_actor():
+    """Check if we are in a Ray actor."""
+
+    try:
+        import ray
+        return (ray.is_initialized()
+                and ray.get_runtime_context().get_actor_id() is not None)
+    except ImportError:
+        return False
diff --git a/vllm/utils/__init__.py b/vllm/utils/__init__.py
index 5b9c3b6a50c..afacea1eac6 100644
--- a/vllm/utils/__init__.py
+++ b/vllm/utils/__init__.py
@@ -71,6 +71,7 @@
 
 import vllm.envs as envs
 from vllm.logger import enable_trace_function_call, init_logger
+from vllm.ray.lazy_utils import is_in_ray_actor
 
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from argparse import Namespace
@@ -2864,17 +2865,6 @@ def zmq_socket_ctx(
         ctx.destroy(linger=linger)
 
 
-def is_in_ray_actor():
-    """Check if we are in a Ray actor."""
-
-    try:
-        import ray
-        return (ray.is_initialized()
-                and ray.get_runtime_context().get_actor_id() is not None)
-    except ImportError:
-        return False
-
-
 def _maybe_force_spawn():
     """Check if we need to force the use of the `spawn` multiprocessing start
     method.