During this time he transformed it from one of limited regional appeal into a more challenging and intellectual newspaper, which often brought it into conflict with the more conservative members of the Roman Catholic Church.
During these years he wrote a number of books, mainly biographies such as those of Lafayette (1932), George Washington (1935), St Francis of Assisi (1962),as well as theological works such as Christianity in the Market Place (1943).
During the late 1930s, de la Bédoyère's Catholic sympathies encouraged him to support in the pages of his newspaper the Nationalists led by General Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
However, he criticised Franco's bombing of Republican cities, saying "We deplore it because there is ground for discussing any plan that may save the lives of women and innocent children, his own country-folk, who will not forget, because Franco has set himself an extremely high ideal and as such he should do all that he can to render less inhuman an inevitable war, and because such bombing does his cause infinite harm from the point of view of world propaganda."
Martin, one of his sons by his second wife still runs Search Press, founded by his mother, Charlotte de la Bédoyère.