[2] Ripon served on his uncle Sir Henry Ellis' British special mission to the Brussels Conference on the affairs of Italy in 1848–49.

[3] Both he and his party colleague James Clay[4] were unseated in 1853 by petition over claims of widespread corruption in their election, of which they were exonerated of any knowledge.

During this period he acted as chairman of the joint commission for drawing up the Treaty of Washington with the United States over the Alabama Claims.

During his time in India, Ripon introduced legislation (the Ilbert Bill, named for the legal member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, Courtenay Ilbert) that would have granted Indians more legal rights, including the right of Indian judges to judge Europeans in court.

In 1883, Lord Ripon joined a shooting party organised by the Maharaja of Darbhanga which had a total bag of 1683, including 4 tigers, 47 buffaloes, 280 pigs and 467 deer.

The Corporation of Chennai's Ripon Building was named for him, as well as the town of Riponpet in the Shivamogga district in the state of Karnataka.

[citation needed] The Ripon Club in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) founded in 1884 by the Parsis for their community members, was named after him.

[17] As noted by Neil Smith, Ripon's liberalism had roots in the mid-nineteenth century, but his political views "shifted with the times".

[22] Lord Ripon married his cousin Henrietta Anne Theodosia Vyner, daughter of Henry Vyner and his wife Lady Mary Gertrude Robinson, daughter of Thomas Robinson, 2nd Earl de Grey, on 8 April 1851.

Lord Ripon survived her by two years and died of heart failure at Studley Royal Park[19] in July 1909, aged 81.

He was buried at St Mary's, Studley Royal[19] and was succeeded in the marquessate and other titles by his only son, Frederick Oliver.