Recent results showing the equivalence of mode attenuation per cycle and reflection loss of the equivalent ray did not hold in shallow water with a small number of modes. The failure is demonstrated to be linked to the concept and definition of a mode cycle distance for low mode density. Attenuation rates of modes and average attenuation rates of rays are now shown to be equal for all mode densities, provided the attenuation is not too large and the ray cycle distance is taken as the sum of the geometrically traced ray distance and the boundary beam displacement.