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The Night's Watch use ravens to send messages between castles, but also when going north of the wall, so the can alert the nearest castle as quickly as possible.

In Season 7, Episode 6, a squad is formed to capture a wight. It is for sure a risky operation, so they would like to ask for help to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea as quickly as possible.

So why didn't they take any raven with them ?

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    @Edlothiad well, they have one in eastwatch. And you don't have to be a maester to take a raven in a cage, or even take care of them in a daily basis, as Sam did it in castle black – Kepotx Oct 21 '17 at 10:19
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    Noise discipline would be my guess. – Paul Oct 21 '17 at 12:17
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    @Edlothiad I never said they knew that would happen. They however should have known that they might need ravens Take The great Ranging for example. Mormont took ravens with him and a steward Samwell to tend to them. Jon is a Steward himself. What I am saying is, they ought to have gone in prepared. There's no point in building legs for the show-writers to stand on. It was a stupid episode where the whole plot was about Dany's rescue. – Aegon Oct 23 '17 at 6:54
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    @Edlothiad The point is, They didn't know they wouldn't get trapped either. A raven is helpful in either case, regardless to whether they get trapped or not. It allows you to send word whatever shocking intel you might come across, it allows you to ask for help, it helps you send last words to your families whatever. Think of it like this, imagine you are some Special Forces Team out there for a quick grab and run mission. Would you go out there without comms or would you rather go there with comms? Ravens might not be as advanced as our comms but they are still a mean – Aegon Oct 23 '17 at 7:33
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    I don't have a good "canon" answer, but nothing in that episode made any sense. I wouldn't worry about such details if I was you. Apparently it took 5 minutes here to run from high up in the North to the wall and 10 minutes to fly across the continent via dragon and a second or so for an entire army to go move on and go somewhere else. And don't tell me a lame screen time not equal movie time, that episode was beyond sloppy. So why take a raven with you? It takes longer to write a message than to deliver it in the world of that episode. It makes "sloppy" sense – Raditz_35 Oct 23 '17 at 11:45
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In Universe

I can think of a couple of reasons why:

  • Time: They were rushed, they needed to get a wight quickly to gain support of the Crown so they could prepare.
  • Resources: They were clearly low on resources as they had few men and weapons. They didn't appear to have much even for the men that survived.
  • Snatch and Grab: They were doing a snatch and grab mission a raven is not needed for such a scenario.
  • Stealth: They were going for stealth, kill a scouting party and capture one wight. You do not need a raven for such a mission. Also a raven could be noisy and give them away.
  • Didn't think they'd need it: In the above types of missions you wouldn't need a raven. They had no idea they'd face the full army so they didn't prepare for such an occasion.

Another reason that they could have known is that they had no idea a raven would even work. Bran sent a group of ravens North to scout out the army of the dead. When the Night King looked at them they scattered. It's unclear if this was because of the Night King, the ravens getting scared or Bran getting scared.

Out of Universe

It was to add to the suspense of will Gendry make his run back in time before the others are killed? Will he make it at all? This is proven by him falling to the ground of exhaustion right as he made it to Eastwatch's gate.

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  • The ravens clearly scattered Cuz bran saw himself looking at him and there minds were locked since the NK is bran – Edlothiad Oct 22 '17 at 12:34

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