Meteor saw extensive service throughout World War I, maintaining continuous operations both as a convoy escort and in harbour protection.

[5][b] Four Yarrow three-drum boilers fed two sets of Parsons steam turbines rated at 26,500 shaft horsepower (19,800 kW), giving a design speed of 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph).

[1][8] On 17 October 1914 Meteor was taking part in a regular patrol with the light cruiser Arethusa (flying the flag of Reginald Tyrwhitt, commander of the Harwich Force) and the destroyers Laforey, Lawford and Miranda on the Broad Fourteens in the Southern North Seas, when suspicious radio signals were received by Lawford.

[12] On 23 January 1915, the German battlecruisers under Admiral Franz von Hipper made a sortie to attack British fishing boats on the Dogger Bank.

[19][20] Meteor led three other destroyers in a torpedo attack against Blücher but was hit by a shell in the forward boiler room which knocked her out of action, killing four and wounding two.

Blücher was eventually overwhelmed by British shells and torpedoes, sinking at 12:10, while Meteor was towed back to the Humber by the destroyer Liberty.

[21] By June 1915, Meteor had joined the 10th Destroyer Flotilla,[22] and was part of the escort for three minelayers, that laid a field of 1450 mines in the North Sea on 10 September 1915.

[30] Meteor continued to carry out minelaying operations for the rest of the war, laying magnetic mines off Ostend during August 1918.