His plays, both of them brought out at the Duke of York's Theatre, were a tragedy written in 1666 and called The English Princess The English Princess, or the death of Richard III (Samuel Pepys, who saw this piece acted 7 March 1667, found it no more than "pretty good"), and a comedy entitled Sir Solomon Single, or the Cautious Coxcomb, which came out in 1671, upon the pattern of Molière's The School for Wives.
When James II of England succeeded to the throne in 1685, he sent Caryll as his agent to the court of Pope Innocent XI, withdrawing him some months later upon the Earl of Castlemaine's appointment to that post.
Caryll was then appointed secretary to Mary of Modena, queen of James II, in whose service he continued after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when he followed the exiled royal family across the sea to Saint-Germain.
His life interest in West Harting was thereon granted to Lord Cutts, but redeemed by Caryll's aforementioned nephew for £6,000.
They left no children, and by a special remainder, he was succeeded in his Jacobite peerage, by his nephew, also named John Caryll.