In 1904 he met with Phan Bội Châu, but Quyen had little in common with Chau's ideology of using violence to achieve independence. Quyen went on the work with Lương Văn Can and Le Dai in setting up the Dong Kinh Thuc Nghia, which sought to strengthen the Vietnamese people and thereby the likelihood of independence through the training of a new, more modern generation of scholars. In 1908, Quyen was arrested in a general crackdown by French authorities and sent to jail on Côn Lôn island.