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Lumifer comments on Summary and Lessons from "On Combat" - Less Wrong
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There's a lot of variation. Some martial arts, and even some schools of a particular martial art, are big on the kiai thing to the point of expecting you to kiai with every full-power strike; some have little or no emphasis on it. The one constant is that they'll all tell you to keep breathing one way or another.
The reason why becomes obvious once you start teaching. A surprising number of students stop breathing or breathe very shallowly under surprisingly mild stress (think two-person kata, not full contact or even point sparring).
Yes, I find it amusing how one style would be insistent that strikes should be on an exhale, and another style would be just as insistent that the only right way to strike is on an inhale :-)
And, yes, tense-up-and-stop-breathing is one of the first things novices need to be trained out of.
Having tried half a dozen styles, I've met to find one that suggests striking on the inhale. Citation? Unless it was a joke and I missed it.
Emphasis on kiai varies tremendously, but one of the common themes is that you breathe out for pushing and breathe in for pulling - in/out as an analogy both breathing and movement to help keep your whole mind and body focused on a coherent action. Also, exhaling when you get hit (or just before) tightens muscles in the torso which can be protective.
I might have overstated my case :-)
I had in mind Tai Chi where one of the basic classifications of movement is into opening and closing ones. You inhale when you open and exhale when you close. A lot (but not all) of the strikes are when you open.