He was the Chair of the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.[5] He was appointed Secretary of the Advisory Committee for the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (C.S.C.O.).

In 1947, when William Foxwell Albright conducted an archaeological exploration in Egypt, he asked Skehan to be a visiting lecturer in his place at Johns Hopkins.

Skehan was also a guest professor during the 1969–1970 academic year at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.

In 1953, Skehan was chosen as a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls editorial team, along with Frank Moore Cross, John Allegro, John Strugnell, Dominique Barthélemy, Jean Starcky, Claus-Hunno Hunziger, Josef T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux who was the project director.

[7] In 1974 The Catholic Biblical Quarterly issued a festschrift in his honor, edited by one of his students, Roland E. Murphy (O.Carm.).