In 1992, with deacon Jacques Mourad, Paolo “officially” founded under the authority of the Syriac Catholic Church a double monastic community (men and women, which is normally contrary to the XX canon of the Second Council of Nicaea), named "the Al-Khalil Monastic Community of Deir Mar Moussa al-Habashi", devoted to four tasks: prayer (in Arabic salat), work (amal), hospitality (dayafa) and dialogue (hiwar), dedicated to Muslim-Christian dialogue.

In 2011, Dall'Oglio wrote an article pleading for a peaceful democratic transition in Syria, based on what he called "consensual democracy".

He left Syria on 12 June 2012 and joined in exile the newly established Deir Maryam al-Adhra of his community in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan.

[8] In December 2012, Dall'Oglio was awarded the Peace Prize of the Italian region of Lombardy that is dedicated to persons having done extraordinary work in the field of peacebuilding.

[13] However, the Rewards for Justice Program offers $5 million for information on the ISIS network responsible for kidnapping Christian clerics: Maher Mahfouz, Michael Kayyal, Yohanna Ibrahim, Boulos Yazigi, and Paolo Dall’Oglio.

[14] In 2023, Pope Francis wrote the preface for Il mio testamento, a collection of previously unpublished spiritual conferences that Dall'Oglio gave to his monastic community soon before his expulsion from Syria.