His acclaimed autobiography Hayat ve Hatıratım was written from exile in France and Egypt as an alternative narrative to Atatürk's famous speech Nutuk that has dominated the historiography of Turkey.

Like Halide Edib and Rauf Orbay, Rıza Nur's work is part of a body of early Republican literature that sought plurality in the increasingly authoritarian Turkish Republic.

The somewhat foolish nature of the work, as well as the refusal of his superiors to supply Rıza with a microscope and other basic scientific tools, helped to convince him that Abdul Hamid II's rule was backward, corrupt and leading Turkey into severe decline.

[3] He entered politics following the adoption of a constitutional monarchy but was imprisoned and later exiled for coming into conflict with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) administration, remaining a dissenting voice from abroad.

[11] Nur expressed displeasure that Albanians had arrived as Turks from Greece contravening the exchange agreement and that they were resettled in areas such as Kartal, Pendik and Erenköy, west of İzmit considered to be high quality lands and in Ankara.

Rıza condemned the executions of Mehmet Cavit Bey and the other alleged assassination conspirators arguing that, whilst he personally disliked the men who had been his own political opponents, he felt that they had not been involved in the plot and so were unjustly killed.