You could either dereference the arrary reference right when the subroutine returns (changes in bold):

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict ;
#
sub xxrc_ref {
#
use strict ;
#
my @tester = qw(a b c d) ;
my $rarray = \@tester ;
#
return $rarray ;
}
#
#######################################################
#                     Variables                       #
#######################################################
#
my $row                 = undef ;
my @response            = undef ;
#
print "\n\t<****** SOR ******>\n" ;
#
@response = @{xxrc_ref()} ;
#
print "\n\tResponse = @response\n" ;
#
for $row (@response) {
   print "\n\t$row\n" ;
}
#
print "\n\t<****** EOR ******>\n\n" ;

(although you might just as well return an array in that case), or you could do this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

sub xxrc_ref {
  my @tester = qw(a b c d) ;
  my $rarray = \@tester ;
  return $rarray ;
}

#######################################################
#                     Variables                       #
#######################################################

my $row;
my $response;

print "\n\t<****** SOR ******>\n" ;

$response = &xxrc_ref() ;

print "\n\tResponse = $response\n" ;

for $row (@$response) {
   print "\n\t$row\n" ;
}

print "\n\t<****** EOR ******>\n\n" ;
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