The invention discloses a ray position modulation communication system and a communication method, the ray position modulation communication system comprises an information source, a regulation and control circuit, a signal generation device, a signal receiving device and a demodulation circuit which are sequentially arranged along a signal transmission direction, the signal generation device comprises a radioactive source and a base, and the radioactive source emits rays with strong penetrability, wherein a plurality of positioning positions are arranged on the base, and the radioactive source is driven by the regulation and control circuit to be switched among the plurality of positioning positions; according to the initial electric signal, the radioactive source is driven to move and switch among a plurality of positioning positions, and rays emitted by the radioactive source at different positioning positions form ray signals; the signal receiving device comprises a plurality of ray detectors which are in one-to-one correspondence with the positioning positions in the ray transmission direction, receive ray signals, convert the ray signals into coded electric signals, demodulate the coded electric signals and then output the coded electric signals. According to the invention, based on ray position coding, code element types are more, the communication rate is improved, andthe communication error rate is reduced.