He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1911. At this time he was also a Sub Warden of Toynbee Hall, the University Settlement in Whitechapel. He and Clement Attlee were in the cast of Ali Baba and the Forty Borough Councillors, the Toynbee Hall Christmas pantomime in December 1909. Wise played Ali Baba and Attlee took the role of Guava Djelli. Wise was Sub-Warden between 1911 and 1912 and was noted as a vigorous advocate of new social legislation. Wise was one of the Toynbee men who were in key positions in Government Administration during the First World War. His association with Toynbee Hall continued after the war. He transferred to the Government Insurance Department which introduced the National Insurance Act 1911 and became acting Principal Clerk to the National Health Insurance Commission in 1912. He was involved in developing the machinery for implementing the Act and was particularly concerned with devising a scheme for the decasualisation of dock labour. He became secretary to the Anglo-Russian Supplies Committee in the War Office (1914–15), responsible for purchasing munitions for Russia. He was promoted to be Assistant Director of Army Contracts in charge of clothing and raw materials in late 1915. In this position he created a Raw Materials Section, consciously imitating the work of Walther Rathenau in the German War Office, introducing state trading and control of Russian flax. He had responsibility for army clothing contracts and also took on the chairmanship of the Central Committee for the Boot and Leather Trades which ensured that the sufficient leather for Army boots was available at prices that could be afforded. He moved to the Ministry of Food, following the appointment of U.F.Wintour as permanent secretary, in 1917, becoming head of the Meat, Milk, Fats Division introducing control of the meat trade. He was described as an ‘aggressive and impatient spirit', convinced of the ‘danger and impossibility of half-measures' and harshly contemptuous of ‘self-interest, timidity and caution'. He was ‘constantly taking risks, doing unprecedented things, defying the precedents, incurring the disapproval of his colleagues, butting in and suggesting improvements, short-circuiting the established routine and stretching the authority given to him to its extreme limit... he was a thruster; a man of action ; an adventurer who took a creative artist's delight in a successful piece of organisation.' He was made Companion of the Order of the Bath (C.B.) on 31 December 1918 for services during the War.