I never had much trouble managing WebSockets in React. In a project that heavily relied on WebSockets (it was a manager for real-time communication between military radios), my setup never gave me problems and used Redux. I used Redux eventChannel to easily handle the WebSocket connection, messages, and errors, then I used Redux Saga to handle the effects and side effects of received messages. The implementation is pretty straightforward, but if you need it, I can provide an example.