Material UI's withTheme() hides component from ref prop - reactjs

Question

For the rare times when you need a reference to another JSX element in React, you can use the ref prop, like this:
class Widget extends React.PureComponent {
example() {
// do something
}
render() {
...
<Widget ref={r => this.mywidget = r}/>
<OtherWidget onClick={e => this.mywidget.example()}/>
Here, the Widget instance is stored in this.mywidget for later use, and the example() function can be called on it.
In Material UI, you can wrap components around a withTheme() call to make the theme accessible in their props:
export default withTheme()(Widget);
However if this is done, the ref receives an instance of WithTheme rather than Widget. This means the example() function is no longer accessible.
Is there some way to use ref with a component wrapped by withTheme() so that the underlying object can still be accessed, in the same manner as if withTheme() had not been used?
Here is an example demonstrating the issue. Lines 27 and 28 can be commented/uncommented to see that things only fail when the withTheme() call is added.

Answer 1

In order to get the ref of the component which is wrapped with withStyles, you can create a wrapper around Widget, and use that with withStyles like
const WithRefWidget = ({ innerRef, ...rest }) => {
console.log(innerRef);
return <Widget ref={innerRef} {...rest} />;
};
const MyWidget = withTheme()(WithRefWidget);
class Demo extends React.PureComponent {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.mywidget = null;
}
render() {
return (
<React.Fragment>
<MyWidget
innerRef={r => {
console.log(r);
this.mywidget = r;
}}
/>
<Button
onClick={e => {
e.preventDefault();
console.log(this.mywidget);
}}
variant="raised"
>
Click
</Button>
</React.Fragment>
);
}
}
Have a look at this answer to see an other alternative approach
losing functions when using recompose component as ref

Answer 2

This is a shorter alternative based on Shubham Khatri's answer. That answer works when you can't alter the inner component, this example is a bit shorter when you can modify the inner component.
Essentially ref doesn't get passed through withTheme() so you have to use a prop with a different name, and implement ref functionality on it yourself:
class Widget extends React.PureComponent {
constructor(props) {
props.ref2(this); // duplicate 'ref' functionality for the 'ref2' prop
...
const MyWidget = withTheme()(Widget);
...
<MyWidget
ref2={r => {
console.log(r);
this.mywidget = r;
}}
/>