In 1913, Joy and Carl G. Fisher were driving forces as principal organizers of the Lincoln Highway Association, a group dedicated to building a concrete road from New York to San Francisco.

He left to try his hand at mining in Utah, but returned to Detroit to become treasurer (and later director) of the Fort Street Union Depot Company.

During the Spanish–American War, Joy served aboard the auxiliary cruiser USS Yosemite (along with his brother-in-law and lifelong friend, Truman Handy Newberry) as chief boatswain's mate.

Later, during World War I, Joy served in the US Army Signal Corps, entering as a captain and leaving as a lieutenant colonel.

The company moved to Detroit, where Joy engaged Albert Kahn, then a young architect with novel ideas, to design and build the world's first reinforced concrete factory on East Grand Boulevard.

His belief that the national prohibition of alcohol would lead to a safer, healthier and better society led him to be very active in the Anti-Saloon League.

In 1913, Joy became one of the principal organizers and president of the Lincoln Highway Association, a group dedicated to building a concrete road from New York to San Francisco.

The effort, which was heavily promoted by his vice president, Carl Graham Fisher, succeeded, and a monument to Joy along the Lincoln Highway at the Continental Divide was dedicated on July 2, 1939.

Neither work was ever published, but the groups research files and unpublished portions of the manuscripts are held in the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library.