'lay in the background' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use this phrase to describe something that is not necessarily the focus but is still present and relevant. For example, "The subtle music in the room laid in the background."
The aura of scandal has made Lewis's T S Eliot portrait perhaps the most celebrated of his works – the Royal Academy's objections lay in the background, which alludes to Eliot's modernist poem The Waste Land.
Graham has argued that echoes of this line of thinking lay in the background of Mencius's thought.
The schematic presentation of Zhu's cosmic theory of li pattern and qi cosmic vapor that lay in the background of his commentary to the Four Books easily opened him to charges of dualism and of reading abstract categories into the down to earth, essentially practical ancient texts.
Several reviewers praised FreeSpaces graphics, claiming asteroids are realistically rendered against softly glowing nebulae, while galaxies and stars of varying colors lay in the background.
In 18 patients, some other, obstructive anatomical disorders lay in the background of widening.
Economists at investment bank JP Morgan said: "A difficult issue lies in the background.
A second shot shows Cyrus pouting in sunglasses as again, a pale, limp model lies in the background.
This is most importantly a theory of how changes arise in human history, though a general metaphysical theory lies in the background.
A political issue that lies in the background of the commission's deliberations is the ban on Federal financing of fetal research.
But Mr. Bush is entitled to reply that the diplomacy they commend is only likely to work because the threat of war lies in the background".
Reporters are keen to spot an illness that would affect a person's viability, and with candidates like John McCain, these interests always lie in the background.
