He spent the next year at Cambridge as a research assistant with Keith Runcorn in the geology and geophysics department before entering the graduate program.

With fellow students Kenneth Creer and Jan Hospers, he looked to extend this record back in time.

Irving used a magnetometer,[6] recently designed by Patrick Blackett, to analyze the magnetic directions imparted to rocks by their iron minerals.

In 1964, they moved to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and Irving began work as a research officer for Dominion Observatory with the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys.

He returned to Ottawa in 1967 to work as a research scientist in the Earth Physics Branch of the Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources.

In 1981, Irving moved to Sidney, British Columbia, to establish a paleomagnetism laboratory at the Pacific Geoscience Centre with the Earth Physics Branch.

He mapped the movements of Vancouver Island and other parts of the Cordillera that have moved sideways and rotated relative to the Precambrian Canadian Shield.

[4] In 2005, Irving was semi-retired, investigating the nature of the geomagnetic field in the Precambrian to understand how the crust was being deformed and how the latitudes varied.