For the next month she conducted tactical exercises along the East Coast and, on 6 July, put into Norfolk to prepare for transfer to the Pacific.

Ramsay arrived at San Diego on 7 August and, after overhaul at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, commenced two years of operations with Destroyer Force, Pacific.

Converted at the Navy Yard there, she operated with Minecraft, Battle Force, primarily in the Hawaiian area until 1937 when she returned to San Diego for her second inactivation and was decommissioned on 14 December 1937.

Recommissioned on 25 September 1939, she joined MinDiv 5, Minecraft, Battle Force, and for the next year conducted patrols engaged in gunnery drills and landing exercises, and trained naval reservists along the Pacific coast.

Moored at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941, she fired her guns in combat for the first time at carrier-based planes delivering Japan's declaration of war on the United States.

During two runs over the enemy, she dropped her depth charges and again was rewarded by the appearance of an oil slick on the surface indicating damage to her quarry.

In November she returned to California; underwent overhaul at Hunters Point; and on 13 January 1943 arrived back in the Aleutians for nine months of escort and patrol duty from Unalaska in the east to Attu in the west.

At the end of the month, she sailed for San Pedro, where, after overhaul, she was designated a miscellaneous auxiliary and was reclassified AG-98, effective 5 June.

On 15 June, she once more got underway for Pearl Harbor, and for the next three months, she served as plane guard for aircraft carriers training in Hawaiian waters.