[5] In 1984, Noonan, as a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, authored his "The boys of Pointe du Hoc" speech on the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

She also wrote Reagan's address to the nation after the Challenger disaster, drawing upon the poet John Magee's words about aviators who "slipped the surly bonds of earth ... and touched the face of God."

Noonan also wrote Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, in which he pledged "Read my lips: no new taxes".

In 2007, Noonan was one of the founding members of the now-shuttered wowOwow.com, along with Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Mary Wells Lawrence, and Joni Evans.

In 2017, Noonan won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for "rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation's most divisive political campaigns.

[15] In 2004, according to an interview with Crisis Magazine, she lived in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights with her son, who attended the nearby Saint Ann's School.

Critics have singled out her reliance on personal anecdotes to make broad assertions about current events and changes in American politics and society.

[23][24] In August 2019, Noonan was mocked for writing a column on Donald Trump's support among Hispanic Americans which centered on a conversation she had with a Dominican friend who worked at the deli counter at her grocery store.

[25][26][27][28][29] Recurring themes in Noonan's books and columns include the decline of civility, social graces, religiosity, patriotism, bipartisanship and statesmanship in contemporary American politics and society, as well as enduring praise for past conservative political figures such as Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

[31][32] In June 2022, Trump issued a statement calling Noonan a "weak and frail RINOTooltip Republican in name only ... who did much less for Ronald Reagan than she claims, and who actually said bad things about him and his ability to speak" after she wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the Republican Party was "rejecting" Trump in the aftermath of the 2021 United States Capitol attack.