[2] As a journalist, Ward variously worked for the Morning Post in England; in Melbourne, for The Herald and Bell's Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle, and The Age; and, in Adelaide, for The Advertiser and the Daily Telegraph, where he served a stint as editor.

[4] He won the confidence of his employers, and at age eighteen he was working with the proprietor's son, Algernon Borthwick, with whom he maintained a long correspondence.

[4] Ward left the Morning Post in 1856, after inheriting some money,[4] and returned to Essex for three years, living the life of a country squire.

[3] In 1859, Ward migrated to Australia in the clipper The British Trident, (among fellow-passengers were South Australian pastoralist Peter Waite and Sir Frederick Pottinger).

[5] While touring the Victoria's important farming centres, he contributed his observations in The Herald and its associated sporting and agricultural journal, Bell's Life.

The following year, he was offered and accepted the leadership of the Hansard staff of The Advertiser in Adelaide (the incumbent, R. S. Smythe, was leaving to become a theatrical entrepreneur and recommended Ward as his successor), commencing in June 1861.

Two years later he tried again, this time in opposition to Arthur Blyth and A. G. Downer and on 5 April 1870, was returned by a substantial majority, secured 343 of 512 votes, and in 1872, 1875, and 1878 he headed the poll for that district.

[3] He quickly made his mark as an eloquent speaker and succeeded in pushing a number of important matters, including the opening up of railway communication with Victoria.

[6] After the subdivision of the Burra electorate in 1884, the Frome district returned Ward at the head of the poll, and he was elected Chairman of Committees and Deputy speaker, where his superlative knowledge of Standing Orders and parliamentary procedure came to the fore.

The following year he was elected to the Legislative Council by the Northern district, which extended from southern Yorke Peninsula to Port Darwin and across to the Western Australian border.

However the bill passed with this amendment and South Australia became the first legislature in the world to grant women the rights to both vote and stand for election.

In 1877 Ward and Sir Henry Ayers represented the State at the eighth Intercolonial Conference assembled to consider duplication of the telegraph cable between Europe and Australia.

He was also a proponent of a transcontinental railway line to Perth, and was noted for a four-hour speech advocating this and other major national works as well as free trade between the states of Australia.

He frequently appeared at the Theatre Royal; on one occasion in aid of an early incarnation of the S.A. Jockey Club, raising nearly £200 in a production of Sheridan Knowles's The Hunchback.

[8] For reasons which are unclear, he wrote a patriotic ditty which bears comparison with "Advance Australia Fair" and "Song of Australia": Ward was Secretary of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of S.A. from 1866 to 1868, and the driving force behind that society's "Grand General Show" 7–9 November 1867 held to coincide with Prince Alfred's visit to the State.

Ward owned a farm at Parawurlie, Yorke Peninsula,[4] which was characterised by Edwin Derrington's Port Adelaide News as both a speculation with Mr. Fuller and a mansion, a den of luxury and licentiousness.

[12] Always a keen political student Ward sought legislative honours ... A splendid rhetorician, a capital debater, and a caustic critic, his style of oratory was convincing, his vocabulary extensive, his diction clear cut and polished, his elocution perfect.

The analytical faculty had been well developed in the stern school of harsh experience, so that he was keen to discern the weaknesses of an adversary, and quick to combat antagonistic views.

Gifted with considerable histrionic power – more than once displayed on the professional stage – and a voice flexible as any actor could desire, it was a treat to hear him in the best years of his life declaim in passionate periods against an existing wrong which required legislative righting.

He wrote articles for the Western Australian press[15] and one of his treasured possessions was a railway pass given to him so that he might travel for the purpose of writing about the country, particularly its pastoral and agricultural industries.