In March 1894 he was attached to the USS Charleston that sailed by way of the Straits of Magellan to Mare Island Navy Yard on her way to the Asiatic Station.

The ship arrived at San Francisco in July 1894 during a railroad strike and while at Mare Island, Passed Midshipman Crosley was given command of a detail that manned a Gatling gun loaded on a flat car ahead of a locomotive with the purpose of dissuading the strikers so that trains might proceed without altercation.

Crossing the Pacific, Charleston arrived at Yokohama, Japan during the Sino-Japanese War and proceeded to Chemulpo, Korea whence Passed Midshipman Crosley was sent to Seoul with a United States Marine guard as security for the American Legation.

On entering under musketry fire from shore, together with Wasp, they discovered the Spanish gunboat Jorge Juan and engaged in a heated action until the remaining ships of the squadron arrived, at which time the enemy vessel was abandoned and sunk.

Two weeks later, at the Battle of Fajardo during the Puerto Rican Campaign, broadsides from Ensign Crosley's Leyden supported a landing party of thirty-five bluejackets from the coastal monitor USS Amphitrite that occupied the Cape San Juan lighthouse and defended sixty women and children of the prominent families of Fajardo that had sought the Americans' protection from a superior Spanish force of about one-hundred to one-hundred and fifty troops and cavalry the night of August 8–9, 1898.

He volunteered for duty against the Insurrectos, and on October 8, 1899, in an engagement at Noveleta, Cavite, Philippine Islands, he was wounded when "a spent ball" struck his leg.

In July 1910 he had special temporary duty in the Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department, Washington, D.C., and on August 4, 1910, took command of the USS Scorpion in English waters.

Prairie was ordered to Haiti and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic during the American occupations, where Captain Crosley received fleeing foreign residents aboard his ship and landed forces that occupied the West Indies islands.

He and his wife reached that city by way of Japan, Korea, China, and Siberia on May 7, 1917, a month after the United States entered World War I.

The Tsar's Government was disintegrating and in July 1917, when Bolsheviks captured Petrograd, the Crosleys were safely escorted under cover of night to the American Embassy by a Russian officer who risked his life to assist them.

Finally reaching Stockholm, Sweden, Captain Crosley received orders there to proceed to Madrid, Spain, as naval attaché, where he reported on May 10, 1918, and remained until the Armistice.

His citation reads, "For distinguished service in the line of his profession as Naval Attaché at Petrograd, and for conducting a party of Americans out of Russia in April 1918, under difficult and trying conditions."

In December 1918, he reported to the Office of Naval Intelligence, Navy Department, and on January 26, 1919, assumed command of the USS Rhode Island that was engaged in returning troops from France.

After his retirement, Admiral Crosley was elected president director of the International Hydrographic Bureau at Monte Carlo, Monaco, in April 1937, and served in that capacity until his resignation in June 1938 on account of ill health.

In 1921, Lieutenant Floyd Crosley was seriously injured while serving as engineering officer on the USS Kennedy (DD-306) when a boiler gauge exploded during a full-power trial run.

Called to the fire-room by a report that a boiler had lost water, he reached there in time to receive the full force of the exploding glass that caused the loss of his right eye.