Ronald Tress was a British economist. 

He studied Economics 1933–36 at University College, Southampton taking a University of London degree. 

From 1941 he was an economic adviser to the British War Cabinet for four years. He became a Professor of Political Economy at the University of Bristol in 1951. He was Master of Birkbeck from 1968 to 1977. He was elected a Fellow of Birkbeck in 1977. He became director of the Leverhulme Trust of 1978.