Ross contributed lyrics to almost all of the Gaiety Theatre's shows, beginning with "The Shop Girl" (1894, with his song "Brown of Colorado") and "Go-Bang" in 1895. He wrote over two thousand lyrics and produced lyrics for over sixty musicals thereafter, including most of the hit musicals through World War I. In 1896, he contributed to the Gaiety Theatre hit, "The Circus Girl". He also wrote lyrics for the one-act comic opera, "Weather or No" (1896), which played as a companion piece to "The Mikado" at the Savoy Theatre, as well as several other Savoy operas, such as "Mirette" (1894), "His Majesty, or The Court of Vignolia" (1897), "The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein" (1897) and "The Lucky Star" (1899).