"Conway" operated from her home port at Norfolk on coastwise and Caribbean training operations and on 16 September 1953 sailed for her first North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) exercise, in the North Atlantic, continuing to a tour of duty in the Mediterranean with the 6th Fleet, returning to Norfolk 8 February 1954. Her training concentrated on antisubmarine warfare, and in 1955 and 1957 she returned to the Mediterranean, in 1957 patrolling the eastern Mediterranean and the Dardanelles during the crisis in Jordan. In the early fall of 1957, she visited ports of northern Europe while joining in NATO exercises, and from January to March 1958, tested new antisubmarine weapons off Key West.