[3] Aly was a professor, lecturer and academic specialising in counter-terrorism, and she is considered a global authority on understanding how and why young people are drawn into violent extremism.

When Aly was two years old she and her parents moved to Australia via an assisted migration program, living first in Queensland, before settling in the western Sydney suburbs Lakemba and Chipping Norton, where Aly attended a private Anglican girls' school, Meriden, and her parents worked in factories and as a bus driver.

[11][12] Aly was one of eleven MPs in the 46th Parliament of Australia who possesses a PhD, the others being Katie Allen, Fiona Martin, Jim Chalmers, Andrew Leigh, Daniel Mulino, Jess Walsh, Adam Bandt, Mehreen Faruqi, Anne Webster and Helen Haines.

[4] Aly is an active member of Curtin University's The Centre for Culture and Technology, leading its Countering Online Violent Extremism research program.

[16] Aly has written published academic papers, books and newspaper articles on terrorist recruitment and counter-messaging[17] and the involvement of former white supremacists in speaking out against violent extremism.

[8] In 2011, former prime minister Kevin Rudd launched Aly's first book, Terrorism & Global Security: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.

[4] Aly was preselected as the Labor candidate for Cowan for the 2016 federal election[24] and was successful in winning the seat from the incumbent, Luke Simpkins, with a 5.2% swing, by a margin of 0.68 points.

[26][27][28] In 2017, Aly was the victim of a fake-news attack claiming that she refused to lay a wreath at an ANZAC Day service in Perth.

[29] During the 2019 federal election campaign, unauthorised anonymous flyers were distributed in the Cowan electorate targeting Aly with unsubstantiated claims including that she supports policies that were "like Saudi Arabia".

[34] On 1 October 2021, during a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security hearing, Anne Aly questioned ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess on the "implications of listing the entirety of Hamas for pro-Palestinian supporters in Australia, particularly those who organise or attend protests.

On 1 July 2024, after senator Fatima Payman was suspended from the Labor party due to her support of recognizing Palestine, accusing Israel of committing genocide during Israel-Hamas war and using the phrase "from river to the sea Palestine will be free", Aly criticised Payman by saying "Fatima chooses to do it her way" and supported the government position of "recognition should be part of a 'just' peace process".

[10] In interviews and Aly's 2018 autobiography, Finding My Place, she discusses the domestic abuse she suffered at the hands of her first husband, the pressure she was under to stay with him, and the struggle to raise her sons as a single mother after divorce.