Return values from an ActionListener?

I'm still relatively new to Java/Swing programming and have a pretty
simple question about using ActionListeners.
I have a big array of stuff, and I want to send that array to a
method to do some editing of the array but using a button ActionListener.
So its no problem to send the array to the called method, but how would I
get the changed array back to the part of my program that called it? I
understand that actionListeners don't allow for returned values.
I'm sure this is likely very simple, so I appreciate the help.

dave
.