From the book: Elrond speaks at the start of the council:
That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.
LOTR The Fellowship of the Ring; The Council of Elrond
Who "Called" and "so ordered" that they meet?
Answer
The same force that caused Bilbo to blindly pick up the Ring so that Frodo would inherit it, as Gandalf points out; the same one that caused all the differing streams of narrative to line up exactly. In other words, Providence.
In-story, this probably means Eru Ilúvatar. But externally, the Catholic inspiration of all Tolkien's work is clear here; God orders events in such a way that the outcome he desires is achieved.
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