Gray won two championships, FA Cup and League Cup honours plus a European Fairs Cup as an influential member of Don Revie’s legendary Leeds squad of the 60s and 70s.
Gray said in The Sun: "It is vitally important to stay in the Premiership.
"Leeds is a great club in a big city with a big support and a great tradition. And so it is vital we keep up there with the elite.
"From that point of view, helping Leeds stay up would be as satisfying as anything I achieved here as a player. It would be right up there with all the medals I won.
"We’ve got a better chance now than we had a month or so ago. We’ve just got to keep working hard and showing the right application.
"I am pleased to be in the job. It’s a difficult situation for the club but I can honestly say I am really enjoying it.”
Gray knows Leeds will have to stop a trend if they are to stay up.
With only 22 points from 27 matches, no Premiership team has survived the drop with so few points at this stage of the season. This time last year, West Ham had 27 and went down to Division One with 42 points.
But Gray insisted: "There’s always a first time for everything and that’s the way I’m looking at it.
"I don’t really bother about statistics because there are so many teams involved down there in the relegation issue that you simply don’t know what is going to happen.
"It doesn’t scare me. It just emphasises what we’ve got to do in our remaining games."