Ref.current is null because the ref is not set till after the function returns and the content is rendered. The useEffect hook fires every time the value of contents of the array passed to it changes. By passing observed in the array and by passing a callback that logs observed to the console, the useEffect hook can be leveraged to accomplish your task.

  useEffect(() => {
    console.log(observed.current);
  }, [observed]);

Edit: This only works on the first render as changes to a ref do not trigger re-renders. But the general statement about useEffect still holds. If you want to observe changes to a ref of a dom element, you can use a callback as ref.

  <div 
    ref={el => { console.log(el); observed.current = el; }} // or setState(el)
    className="App"
  >

Code Sandbox

At the time the console.log happens, the ref isn't yet set. Try putting your console.log into a useEffect hook and it works as you want it to.

import React, { useRef, useEffect } from "react";
import ReactDOM from "react-dom";

import "./styles.css";

function App() {
  const observed = useRef(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    console.log(observed.current);
  }, [observed]);

  return (
    <div ref={observed} className="App">
      <h1>Hello CodeSandbox</h1>
      <h2>Start editing to see some magic happen!</h2>
    </div>
  );
}

const rootElement = document.getElementById("root");
ReactDOM.render(<App />, rootElement);

This is what I ended up doing since calling useEffect on rlvRef did not capture all events.

const rlvRef = useRef()
const [refVisible, setRefVisible] = useState(false)

useEffect(() => {
  if (!refVisible) { 
    return
  }
  // detected rendering
}, refVisible)

return (
  <RecyclerListView
    ref={el => { rlvRef.current = el; setRefVisible(!!el); }}
    ... 
  />
)