The interaction of a propagating pulse of quantum radiation with a localized quantum system can be described by a cascaded master equation with a distinct initially populated input and a finally populated output field mode [Kiilerich and Mølmer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 123604 (2019)0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.123.123604]. By transformation to an appropriate interaction picture, we break the cascaded nature of the master equation and recover an effective time-dependent interaction with a lossless single mode and a supplementary lossy mode. The former closely represents the traveling pulse, while the latter constitutes a non-Markovian component in the exchange of quanta between the scatterer and the quantized field. The transformed master equation offers important insights into the system dynamics, and it permits numerically efficient solutions.