With the First World War beginning, the marriage breaking down, and her husband being transferred to the front in Flanders and France, she was forced to look for a way of supporting herself and her daughters.

She moved to Lisbon and started working at the American News Agency with the help of Virgínia Quaresma, Portugal’s first female professional journalist.

[1][2][3] After her second marriage Lamas started to write for other newspapers, such as O Século, and A Capital, as well as publishing poems (Os Humildes, 1923), serials, novels (Caminho Luminoso, Para Além do Amor, Ilha Verde), and stories for children.

They exchanged numerous letters, postcards and telegrams reporting on daily life, travel, thoughts, sadness, dreams and compliments about each other's literary work, ending only in 1973, the year before his death.

She was made an Officer of the Order of Santiago (Portuguese: Ordem Militar de Sant'Iago da Espada) on 7 February 1934, for her work on behalf of women.

A year later, she joined the Associação Feminina Portuguesa para a Paz (Portuguese Women's Peace Association - AFPP), where she got to know a fellow feminist and anti-government activist, Virgínia Moura.

From this time, she started to sign her work as Maria Lamas, having previously used pseudonyms such as "Serrana d'Ayre", "Rosa Silvestre", "Vagna Ina" and "Armia", the last mainly being used in the magazine Alma feminina, the official means of communication of the CNMP.

This brought together three thousand books by 1400 women authors from thirty countries, which filled the Great Hall of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon.

[5] She also continued to develop propaganda against the Estado Novo and supported the aborted Presidential candidacy of José Norton de Matos in 1949.

She began to develop activities to support Portuguese refugees who opposed the regime, such as Helena Pato and Stella Piteira Santos, only returning to Portugal at the end of 1969, with a guarantee that there were no arrest warrants against her.

[1][2][3][6] Following the overthrow of the Estado Novo as a result of the Carnation Revolution, on 25 April 1974, Lamas officially joined the Portuguese Communist Party.