The Rays become very predictable after you've observed their behavior enough. It's still tough for me, though, since I always have such little health left after the Tengu run that a single misstep means I have to start all over.

Oh, and don't even try the "tap Triangle to avoid suffocation" bit in Extreme mode without a turbo controller. The odds you'll survive using any of the plethora of techniques people have come up with are miniscule, and it's just not worth the stress of trying.

Fortunately, Solidus is universally easy.