[1] Lyons was ordained to the priesthood in Rome by Willem Cardinal van Rossum, CSSR, on his twenty-fourth birthday, 6 January 1927.

After obtaining his doctorate in divinity in June of that same year, Lyons returned to Australia and then did pastoral work in Collingwood, Geelong, and Brunswick before joining the staff of St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1935.

The establishment of this seminary, and the invitation to the Jesuits to staff it, was largely on the initiative of Lyons[3] (with the important support of Bishop Liston of Auckland).

[4] Lyons also purchased the land in West Christchurch for St Thomas of Canterbury College (which was built some years later) and invited the Christian Brothers to staff it.

He served as the episcopal leader of the Catholic Social Studies Movement in Sydney until 1954, during which time he incurred heavy resentment for dismissing Fr.