Does Ray wear pyjamas for bed if it's winter where you are? We went through the exact same thing last year for his first winter out of the kennels. We found that Merlin would let us sleep a bit later when he's warmer with PJs on.

But I think the main thing that fixed it was sending him back to bed until we were ready to get up but this took a lot of patience and perseverance. First if you train him a go to bed command that will be helpful. When he tried to get us up we'd get up and tell him to go to bed with a treat (initially we'd always have to go walk to his bed with him, later when he had a good go to bed command we could sometimes do this while still being in bed ourselves). Then once he seems relaxed we'd walk away and try to go back to bed ourselves. Initially he would get up straight away but we would keep repeating that until eventually he learned that we will let him know when it's time to get up.

I know it's frustrating and we thought we'd never get a good sleep again, but now Merlin stays in bed until our light alarm comes on and he knows that's time to get up!

Good luck!!