diff --git a/vllm/executor/ray_distributed_executor.py b/vllm/executor/ray_distributed_executor.py
index bdc2b1f4c27c..a3f05ec5ea3f 100644
--- a/vllm/executor/ray_distributed_executor.py
+++ b/vllm/executor/ray_distributed_executor.py
@@ -557,8 +557,17 @@ class RayDistributedExecutor(DistributedExecutorBase):
     def _compiled_ray_dag(self, enable_asyncio: bool):
         assert self.parallel_config.use_ray
         self._check_ray_cgraph_installation()
+        # Enlarge the default value of "RAY_CGRAPH_get_timeout" to 300 seconds
+        # (it is 10 seconds by default). This is a Ray environment variable to
+        # control the timeout of getting result from a compiled graph execution,
+        # i.e., the distributed execution that includes model forward runs and
+        # intermediate tensor communications, in the case of vllm.
+        # Note: we should set this env var before importing
+        # ray.dag, otherwise it will not take effect.
+        os.environ.setdefault("RAY_CGRAPH_get_timeout", "300")  # noqa: SIM112
         from ray.dag import InputNode, MultiOutputNode
-
+        logger.info("RAY_CGRAPH_get_timeout is set to %s",
+                    os.environ["RAY_CGRAPH_get_timeout"])  # noqa: SIM112
         logger.info("VLLM_USE_RAY_COMPILED_DAG_CHANNEL_TYPE = %s",
                     envs.VLLM_USE_RAY_COMPILED_DAG_CHANNEL_TYPE)
         logger.info("VLLM_USE_RAY_COMPILED_DAG_OVERLAP_COMM = %s",
@@ -570,15 +579,6 @@ class RayDistributedExecutor(DistributedExecutorBase):
                 "Invalid value for VLLM_USE_RAY_COMPILED_DAG_CHANNEL_TYPE: "
                 f"{channel_type}. Valid values are: 'auto', 'nccl', or 'shm'.")
 
-        # Enlarge the default value of "RAY_CGRAPH_get_timeout" to 300 seconds
-        # (it is 10 seconds by default). This is a Ray environment variable to
-        # control the timeout of getting result from a compiled graph execution,
-        # i.e., the distributed execution that includes model forward runs and
-        # intermediate tensor communications, in the case of vllm.
-        os.environ.setdefault("RAY_CGRAPH_get_timeout", "300")  # noqa: SIM112
-        logger.info("RAY_CGRAPH_get_timeout is set to %s",
-                    os.environ["RAY_CGRAPH_get_timeout"])  # noqa: SIM112
-
         with InputNode() as input_data:
             # Example DAG: PP=2, TP=4
             #