Already interested in politics (he had won a Conservative Party prize for public speaking before the war), Steward was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire in 1951 and fought Liverpool Edge Hill at the general election later that year.
In January 1955, Steward was selected from 60 applicants to be Conservative candidate for Stockport South where a byelection was pending after Sir Arnold Gridley was given a peerage.
In a straight fight with a Labour candidate, Steward won with a majority of 2,563, which was almost the same as at the previous election (making allowances for the reduced turnout).
In 1960, as Deputy Leader of the Conservative group, he strongly opposed a motion by the Labour majority on the council to boycott goods from South Africa in protest at apartheid.
He was elected as an Alderman in 1961; in the same year he chaired a conference on the effect of British membership of the Common Market on the North West economy.
In January 1963, he was identified in a piece broadcast on BBC TV's That Was the Week That Was which named 13 MPs who had not spoken in the House of Commons since the previous general election.