Goals from Gerard Pique, a Lionel Messi penalty and Luis Suarez were enough to cancel out Raul de Tomas's opener on a comfortable night ahead of a tricky Champions League return leg against Lyon on Wednesday.
The league leaders knew they had to respond with Atletico Madrid beating Leganes earlier today
The visitors should have been awarded a penalty inside five minutes when Pique blatantly pulled down Raul as he turned the Barca defender in the box.
But somehow referee Mario Lopez was having none of it and waved play on.
Samuel Umtiti was unlucky not to score when he just could not grow enough to get any purchase on a teasing Messi cross.
Then Phillippe Coutinho fluffed his lines after Arturo Vidal and Messi beautifully combined to tee up the Brazilian whose tame close-range shot when straight at Rayo keeper Stole Dimitrievski.
And after surviving the home side’s early onslaught, Rayo took a shock lead thanks to Raul.
The striker on loan from Real Madrid latched on to through ball and cut inside Pique to fire home part Marce-Andre ter Stegen for his 11th goal of the season.
It took Barca 14 minutes to get back on level terms when an unmarked Pique headed home from a Messi free kick to settle down to Nou Camp crowd.
After the break, normal service was resumed when Messi got his 26th goal of the season on the day he surpassed Andres Iniesta La Liga appearances from the penalty spot.
Nelson Semedo was brought down in the box by Jordi Amat – and after a quick look by VAR the penalty was confirmed and the Barca skipper made no mistake from the spot.
Suarez then got in on the act with his 20th goal of the after some fine work from sub Ivan Rakitic.
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