In Hantoob, he met and befriended some of the future Sudanese leaders like Jaafar Nimeiry, Sadiq Al-Mahdi and Hassan Al-Turabi.

After successfully completing his university in the UK, Abdirahman returned and started his career as an Administrative Officer in Borama in 1956 and was elevated to the position of District Commissioner (DC) 3 years later (1959).

In that same year he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he was appointed in the following diplomatic posts: He later became the Chairman of the Somali National Movement (SNM), a guerilla force mainly drawn from his Isaaq clan, which was attempting to topple former President of Somalia Siad Barre's military regime.

Although the SNM at its inception had a unionist constitution, it eventually began to pursue a separatist agenda, looking to secede from the rest of Somalia.

Tuur concurrently began instead to publicly seek and advocate reconciliation with the rest of Somalia under a power-sharing federal system of governance.