An efficient tool to deal with multidimensional radiative heat transfer is in strong demand to analyse the various thermal problems combined either with other modes of heat transfer or with combustion phenomena. The current study examines the discrete ordinates method (DOM) for coupled radiative and conductive heat transfer in rectangular enclosures in which either a non-scattering or scattering medium is included. The results are compared with the other benchmark approximate solutions. The efficiency and accuracy of the DOM are thus validated.