In Ruby iteration is implemented by letting something call a block repeatedly until the end of the iteration. The interpreter provides jump points in order to implement skipping or breaking the iteration. A continue is implemented as a form of jumping to the end of the block, a break is implemented by jumping past the call to the iterator function. Without the return it would be very awkward to return something from the function.Imagine a function that returns the first even item from a list:

    >> def find_even iterable
    >>  iterable.each { |x| return x if x % 2 == 0 }
    >> end
    => nil
    >> find_even [1, 3, 5, 6]
    => 6

    >> def find_even iterable
    >>  done = false
    >>  rv = nil
    >>  iterable.each { |x|
    >>   if x % 2 == 0
    >>    done = true
    >>    rv = x
    >>    break
    >>   end
    >>  }
    >>  rv
    >> end
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