According to Genesis, Noah first released a raven from the Ark to test the receding waters.
Genesis 8:6–7 says that after forty days Noah opened the window and sent out a raven. The raven went back and forth until the waters had dried from the earth. Noah then sent out a dove in a separate sequence, making the raven the first bird released in the account.
This detail is frequently reversed because the dove receives more attention in later verses. The dove returns with an olive leaf and is then sent out again, while the raven’s behavior is described more briefly.
The passage presents the birds as part of Noah’s effort to determine whether the ground had become habitable. It does not say that the raven returned into the Ark in the same explicit way as the dove. That difference is why careful wording matters when comparing the two episodes.