McNally later became a federal bureaucrat and ran the south eastern regional office of the (newly established) Urban Mass Transit Administration in Atlanta, Georgia in the 1970s.
During World War II, McNally was activated from the Army reserves in 1943, assigned to the Office of Strategic Services and worked behind enemy lines in the China/Burma/India Himalayan corridor.
Using the GI bill, he graduated from Northwestern University School of Law and by 1955 moved to Mobile, Alabama, where he became a community leader during desegregation controversies following the Supreme Court's decisions in Brown v. Board of Education.
[4] McNally pushed to create an Industrial Development Board with the power to issue bonds, as well as attract new business to the area, greatly dependent upon Brookley Air Force Base.
Meanwhile, following Alabama's vote for Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 elections, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared Brookley Air Force base faced closure, and challenger Arthur R. Outlaw defeated McNally's re-election bid in 1965.