Disclosed is an apparatus and method for processing a ranging channel in an OFDMA system. The apparatus converts received ranging complex signals to polar coordinate signals having a signal magnitude and a phase, and the received converted signals are each represented by a signal magnitude component and a phase component. A predetermined phase component of a signal according to a phase rotation is used to estimate a time delay by an addition operation of the phase of the received signal and the phase according to the phase rotation. Accordingly, the time delay and the power of each reverse link user of the OFDMA mobile communication system can be calculated by arithmetic operations of addition components instead of multiplication components, resulting in the reduction of complexity.