diff --git a/charm4py/ray/__init__.py b/charm4py/ray/__init__.py
index 61abc17..c88982f 100644
--- a/charm4py/ray/__init__.py
+++ b/charm4py/ray/__init__.py
@@ -1 +1 @@
-from .api import get_object_store, init, remote, get, wait, put
+from .api import get_object_store, init, remote, get, wait, put, is_initialized, shutdown
diff --git a/charm4py/ray/api.py b/charm4py/ray/api.py
index c49f625..24d1cd8 100644
--- a/charm4py/ray/api.py
+++ b/charm4py/ray/api.py
@@ -10,6 +10,13 @@ def init():
     charm.thisProxy.updateGlobals({'object_store' : object_store,},
                                   awaitable=True, module_name='charm4py.ray.api').get()
 
+def is_initialized():
+    # if the object store exists, ray is initialized
+    if 'object_store' in globals():
+        return True
+    else:
+        return False
+
 
 def get_object_store():
     global object_store
@@ -103,4 +110,8 @@ def put(obj):
     from ..charm import charm
     fut = charm.threadMgr.createFuture(store=True)
     fut.create_object(obj)
-    return fut
\ No newline at end of file
+    return fut
+
+def shutdown():
+    global object_store
+    del object_store
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/examples/ray/simple.py b/examples/ray/simple.py
index 800f6b9..25d2cb7 100644
--- a/examples/ray/simple.py
+++ b/examples/ray/simple.py
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ def add(self, a, b):
 
 def main(args):
     ray.init()
+    assert ray.is_initialized()
     # create 3 instances of MyChare, distributed among cores by the runtime
     arr = [Compute.remote(i) for i in range(4)]
     
@@ -43,6 +44,9 @@ def main(args):
     while len(not_ready) > 0:
         ready, not_ready = ray.wait(not_ready)
         print("Fetched value: ", ray.get(ready))
+    
+    ray.shutdown()
+    assert not ray.is_initialized()
 
     exit()