Ragin gained fame by winning the 1983 Purcell-Britten Prize for Concert Singers in England, the Prix Spécial du Jury du Grand Prix Lyrique de Monte Carlo in 1988, and First Prize at the 35th ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 1986.[3]
For the soundtrack of the 1994 film Farinelli, his voice was electronically blended with that of soprano Ewa Malas-Godlewska to recreate the famous castrato's voice.[5] He also recorded extensively for the Telarc, Philips, EMI, Erato and Capriccio labels, including Italian lute songs, G.F. Handel cantatas.
Shortly after his Salzburg performance of Orfeo ed Euridice, he sang the role of Orfeo on the Philips recording of the opera with Sylvia McNair as Euridice and Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducting the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir. Farinelli, the film about the 18th century castrato won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film in 1995, and the soundtrack won the Golden Record award the following year in Cannes.[3]