 Despite growing up in a Conservative family, Murray was a member of the Ontario Liberal Party.He served on the municipal council for three years, beginning in 1921, before being elected reeve in 1924 of the Sherwood, Jones, and Burns townships that made up the then-unincorporated village of Barry's Bay.In the 1929 Ontario provincial election, he ran for a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the Renfrew South riding against incumbent Thomas Moore Costello of the Conservative Party, who had held the seat since 1926.