After passing the Entrance examination from the City School, Sukumar Ray took his BSc (1911) in chemistry from Presidency College. He then went to England on the Guruprasanna Ghosh Scholarship to study photography and printing technology. Sukumar studied at the Manchester School of Technology, where he proved the effectiveness of photo printing in halftone invented by his father.

At the East and West Society, Sukumar Roy read an essay called 'Spirit of Rabindranath', which was later published in The Quest magazine. This earned him the opportunity to speak at various meetings in England. He was selected fellow of the Royal Photographic Society; he was the second Indian to earn this distinction. Back home in 1913, he took over his father's enterprise called U Roy and Sons.

Sukumar Roy was a versatile genius. He used to compose rhymes at an early age. Along with photography he learnt painting. While at college, he used to write comedies and act in them. He also acted in a play called Goday Galad with Rabindranath Tagore and Abanindranath Tagore at Santiniketan. He composed some songs during the Swadeshi Movement and also sang the songs himself. After his father's death, he took over the Sandesh, a magazine published by his father. While in England, he sent stories, poems and paintings to be published in the magazine.

While studying at Presidency College, he set up an organisation called 'Nonsense Club' and published the magazine Sade-Batrish-Bhaja as its mouthpiece. On his return from England, he started the 'Monday Club' where he used to arrange discussions along with refreshments, which earned the club another name, Monda (Bangla for sweetmeat) Club.
Sukumar Roy was principally noted for his writings for young children. He mixed comic elements and subtle satire in all his works-poems, plays, stories or paintings. His satire is marked by his social consciousness. His prominent writings include, Ha-Ya-Ba-Ra-La (Topsy-Turvy, 1928), Pagla Dashu (1940), Bahurupi (The Jester, 1944), Khaikhai (I Want More, 1950), Abak Jalpan (Strange Drink), Shabdakalpadrum (The Tree of Words) and Jhalapala (Irritation). He also wrote some serious essays in Bangla and English. He wrote a collection of belles-lettres called Hesoramer Dairi, written in the form of a diary.

Sukumar Ray's finest work Abol-Tabol the nearest English translation of which can be ‘nonsense’ or ‘gibberish,’ was written in the last two and a half years of his life. He died in 1923, nine days before his best-loved book 'Abol Tabol' was published. Anyone who has had his early schooling in Bengal, has grown up with the delightfully crazy verses of Abol Tabol that children love to recite. The poems of Abol Tabol had been gathered out of various issues of the children’s magazine, Sandesh, which Sukumar Ray had been editing. The comic fantasies of Abol Tabol display a special brand of anarchic madness which bears the distinctive stamp of Sukumar Ray. Among his fantastic characters is an old man who survives on boiled wood and can tell you the taste and smell of different kinds of wood (“Kaath Buro”). There is the old woman whose rickety house has been put together with spit. There is a singer whose voice echoes from Delhi to Burma and makes animals faint. Roy’s artistry and genius is best portrayed in this collection of fine verses and if he had not written a single word elsewhere – Abol Tabol would have anyways made him what he is today.