After resigning as an Assistant District Officer in Malacca in his early 30s, Ho left for the United Kingdom where he pursued his law degree, being called as a barrister of the Lincoln's Inn in England in 1961, at the age of 34.
In 1969, in what was considered a feat, Ho, then 42, stood as a "favourite son of Sitiawan" under the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) ticket and successfully wrested the ruling Alliance coalition's blue ribbon Sitiawan parliamentary seat from Kam Woon Wah, the secretary-general of the then powerful Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), a senior partner of the governing Alliance (later became National Front or Barisan Nasional in 1973) coalition.
Ho was dropped in 1982 general election as the ruling coalition's candidate in an intra-MCA intrigue involving powerful forces who finally removed MCA president Dato’ (as he then was, later Tan Sri) Lee San Choon, also a Cabinet Minister.
According to his confidante and close friend of more than 40 years standing, newspaper editor-turned-New Zealand-trained lawyer Tan Ban Cheng of Penang, “Dato’ Ho never wanted to be MCA president.
[3] Unable to resolve the claims of the contending ambitions of the Tan and Neo factions, Tan Sri Lee resigned in 1983, sending the MCA into an almost three-year-long crisis that culminated in the eventual rise of Dr (now Tun Dato Seri Dr) Ling Liong Sik over the ambitious Datuk Neo and architect and incumbent Cabinet Minister Datuk Mak Hon Kam both of whom fell out as the crisis widened.