During his time in Parliament, Meyer served in the governments of three successive presidents: P. W. Botha, F. W. de Klerk, and Nelson Mandela.

In 1986, he became Deputy Minister of Law and Order, an important position in P. W. Botha's government: with the declaration of the first State of Emergency in 1985, the National Joint Management Centre (NJMC), chaired by the Deputy Minister of Law and Order, took over as the nerve centre for co-ordination of all welfare and security policies.

Allegedly, the "verligte Nat" ("liberal" or "enlightened" NP politician) couldn't win the respect of the generals in this position.

[2] In this role, he worked closely with Niel Barnard, who was head of the National Intelligence Service and a strong supporter of a negotiated settlement.

In what was viewed as a demotion, Meyer was instead installed at the head of an internal task team charged with conceptualising the party's political future.

[16] The United Democratic Movement won fourteen seats in the general election of 1999 and Meyer returned to the National Assembly.

[18] In Meyer's account, he became "politically homeless" in the aftermath,[19] until, in 2006, he announced that he had applied for membership of the African National Congress.

[19] He was a member of the Strategy Committee of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition at Tufts University and served as the chairman of the Civil Society Initiative in South Africa.

[21][22] From 2012 to 2014, he chaired the Defence Review Committee in South Africa,[23] and during that time, in 2013, he co-founded the In Transformation Initiative, a pro-democracy non profit organisation.