Among her operations included providing training, supply, and bombardment support for the Estonian and Latvian provisional governments in the Baltic Wars of Independence.

During March she led contraband patrols in the Ionian Sea, and off the coast of Greece, checking ships transporting cargoes to the Axis countries, as well as escorting Allied convoys.

In June she was assigned to operate in the Indian Ocean and based at Colombo and later Bombay, where she escorted tanker convoys from the Persian Gulf to the British colony at Aden.

In this capacity, Ceres bombarded the advancing Italian column on 17 August, slowing their progress and giving British troops retreating after the Battle of Tug Argan time to evacuate.

On New Year's Day 1942, in company with the sloop HMS Bridgewater she escorted the 18 ships of Convoy WS-14 to South Africa from the U.K. with reinforcements for the Middle East.

Ceres was assigned as one of the two Shuttle Control ships at Omaha Beach and, anchored inshore, directed the assembly and departure of unloaded, outbound vessels and convoys.

[7] Subsequently, following the destruction of the artificial harbour off Omaha Beach during the Great Storm that occurred approximately two weeks after 6 June 1944 and as a result of the German demolition of the Port of Cherbourg in late June, HMS Ceres and her sister ship, HMS Capetown, was assigned to the task of Shuttle Control, expediting the passage and unloading of vessels from the UK to Omaha and Utah Beaches.

HMS Ceres remained "On Station" off Omaha Beach for the entire summer of 1944 from the early hours of 7 June until the end of August, 1944.

When Cherbourg became available to shipping from the UK, HMS Ceres returned to Plymouth for overhaul and those US naval officers who had staffed the "Shuttle Control Operation" were reassigned.