When Lim Boon Keng left for China in 1918, Lee served as an acting Chinese member of the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements.

He was also a member of the Singapore Housing Commission, the Board of Food Control,[1] the Straits Chinese British Association, the Chinese Advisory Board and the management committee of the Tan Tock Seng Hospital, and was also a justice of the peace.

Following her death, he married Tan Teck Neo, a prominent philanthropist and socialite, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

He and Tan each donated $5,000 to the building fund of the St Andrew's Mission Hospital for Women and Children.

[1] During World War I, he and Lim Peng Siang donated a plane to the British Army.