Following shakedown of the Middle Atlantic seaboard and gunnery and anti-submarine training at Casco Bay, Narragansett departed American waters on 1 April 1943, in convoy for Gibraltar and the Mediterranean theater.

During April, she performed towing services along the North African coast to Italy and to Sicily resuming in May, duties as general utility ship at Oran.

On 16 June, the hard working tug, now reclassified ATF-86 (effective 15 May), again departed for Naples, this time to join in the preparations for "Operation Dragoon", the invasion of Southern France.

For the next month and a half, she frequently transited the waters between Bizerte, Naples, Sardinia and Corsica, as harbors on the latter island were turned into supply stations, repair facilities and beaching craft convoy staging areas.

There the Germans, protecting the centuries-old invasion route to the interior along the Argens River and the only airfield and seaplane base on that coast, had mounted impressive coastal batteries along the cliffs heavily mined the waters and beaches.

Until mid-October she worked to clear those two harbors for the ships bringing the necessary supplies to the Allied land forces pushing inland toward the heart of the Third Reich.

Arriving off the Carolina coast on 12 December, she entered the Charleston Navy Yard for overhaul prior to sailing for the Panama Canal and a new assignment, the Pacific Fleet.

While proceeding up the western Central American coast on 23 February, heavy seas and a 50-knot (93 km/h) wind caused the main tow line to floating dry dock ARDC-12 to part.

After delivering U.S. Army barges and various district craft to Eniwetok, Saipan and Guam, she arrived at San Pedro Bay, Leyte on 11 July, to report for duty with ComServRon 10 for the remainder of the war and into October, she performed towing jobs in the Philippine, Marshall, Mariana, Volcano and Hawaiian Islands.

Decommissioned at Orange, Texas, on 21 December, she remained berthed there as a unit of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet until 1 September 1961, when she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register.