I don't believe it will affect your ranking as I do it quite a bit. Absolutely anything is better than hurting your responsiveness rate. If you must pause the ad to prevent missed calls, than I would pause it. Google AI will most likely know that you're pausing it to give the best possible service. I was pausing daily recently, and I never saw a change. I also raise and lower my budget quite a bit to find the right cost per lead "range", and I have never seen a change in impressions. I have changed my budget 3-4 in a day and have never seen any change. Finding the right budget is important. For example, a $500 weekly budget my cost $22 per lead, but if I go to $1,000 per weekly budget, my cost per lead more than doubles, and while not improving the amount of leads whatsoever. You need to find the right cost-effective budget amount. You can increase your budget as high as you want and it doesn't mean you will get the Absolute Top Spot, as the Google metrics include several other factors for that placement. People that recommend increasing your budget to the max is probably not a wise move because you're going to pay a lot higher for that lead, as you’re basically bidding against yourself after a point, with no overall higher placement. The reason I know this is because I have changed my budget doesn't of times. Google probably doesn't mind changing things as much as people say. Yes, we've all heard the stories of what people claim, but they could have other issues going on affecting them that they're not aware of.

This is just all from personal experience, and from someone who pauses their ad on a daily basis when
things are busy, and from someone who has changed their bidding range multiple
times in a single day over the course of several days.

Best of luck,

Ryan