Attached to the Harwich-based 5th Light Cruiser Squadron, she took part in several North Sea patrols during the last months of World War I.

[3] Between October and November of the following year, she passed to the Baltic Sea, where she supported the Whites in the Russian Civil War, along with her sister ships Dragon and Dauntless.

The flotilla further consisted of the battlecruisers Hood, Repulse and the cruisers Delhi, Dragon, Dauntless and Dunedin, as well as 9 other ships (mostly destroyers), and was bound on a journey around the world.

Then the task force visited Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban, to where she arrived the last day of the year.

Transferred to the Mediterranean, between 1927 and 1929 Danae served as an escort of the 1st Cruiser Squadron, after which she was withdrawn to Great Britain for refurbishment and modernisation.

Danae left Devonport on 20 August 1930, for Bermuda, by way of Halifax, Nova Scotia, towing the paddle-wheeled tug Sandboy (formerly named Strenuous).

On 6 September (when she was reported to belong to the Atlantic Squadron, but was actually joining the 8th Cruiser Squadron on the America and West Indies Station, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda), Danae left Sandboy at Halifax, in order to render aid to Santo Domingo, which had been struck by a hurricane, arriving there on 10 September (with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary oiler Serbol also arriving to render aid) and handing over to the Government of dictator Rafael Trujillo and the American Relief Committee all of the ship's medical supplies above what was retained in case of an emergency and all surplus food.

[4][5][6] Ships of the America and West Indies Station were generally scattered from Newfoundland to Cape Horn, and venturing into the Pacific Ocean, on cruises, but returned to Bermuda periodically where the fleet would gather for exercises.

Danae under Captain Eric Richard Bent arrived at the Royal Naval Dockyard, where the fleet was to gather in October, on 22 September from Santo Domingo.

On 20 January she was attached to the China Force, and started to escort convoys in the Yellow Sea and between the Dutch Indies and Ceylon, together with the cruisers Durban, Dauntless, Cornwall and the Australian HMAS Canberra.

In February, the ship moved to Scapa Flow, on 2 April she was attached to the 10th Cruiser Squadron (comprising Birmingham, Bellona, Diadem, and Dido), but was again withdrawn for repair of damaged turbines a week later.

Attached to the 29th Destroyer Flotilla (comprising Zodiac, Zephyr and Zest), she was briefly stationed in the port of Wilhelmshaven, the main base of the Kriegsmarine, recently captured by the Polish 1st Armoured Division.