In accordance with an embodiment, described herein is a system and method for providing a representational state transfer (REST) service configuration wizard for creating REST reference or proxy services for execution in a service bus runtime. The configuration wizard can retrieve, based on a URI provided by a user, one or more resources of an external REST service, and can generate a plurality of properties for each resource. A plurality of interfaces can be provided to guide the user step by step in creating a REST reference service to access the external REST service. The user can make selections for each property and provide information if necessary. An API can be invoked to generate a REST reference service and a WADL file describing the REST reference service, based on the user's selections and the provided information.