A little over a year after Roy's first episcopal appointment, Pope Pius raised him to Archbishop of Quebec on June 2, 1947. He was made Primate of the Canadian Church upon Quebec's elevation to that ecclesiastical rank on January 24, 1956.
As President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, it was to Roy, that Pope Paul VI addressed his apostolic letter of 14 May 1971, Octogesima adveniens commemorating the eightieth anniversary of Rerum novarum and discussing the role of the laity and local churches in responding to situations of injustices.
In 1971 Roy was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, and he resigned all three of his Curial posts on December 16, 1976. He was a cardinal elector in the conclaves of August and October 1978, and stepped down as Quebec's archbishop on March 20, 1981,[2] after a period of thirty-three years.
Roy died in his sleep at a hospital in Quebec, at age 80. He is buried in the crypt of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Thus his baptism, confirmation, priestly ordination, episcopal consecration, installment as Archbishop of Quebec, and burial all took place at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.[5]