On 19 October 1957 at St Mary's Church in West Perth, he married Jacynth Horley, with whom he was to have one son and two daughters.
Reid contested the seat of Blackwood in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly for the Country Party, of which he had been a member since 1965, at the 1971 election, and won with a 7% swing to his party against the Liberals, who had held the seat from 1950 until 1968.
[1] He contested the 1974 election three months later as a National Alliance candidate (the Alliance had been formed between the Western Australian Country Party and the WA branch of the Democratic Labor Party), but he was defeated.
In the 1980s, he became heavily involved with promotion of the Bridgetown region, with a four-year stint as president of the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Tourist Bureau.
From 1984 until 1990, he served as deputy chairman of the Advisory Committee and convenor of the Economic Development subcommittee of the Authority.