Ayres gradually moved to television, appearing in several anthology series in guest roles. In the summer of 1958, he hosted eleven original episodes of a CBS Western anthology television series called "Frontier Justice", a production of Dick Powell's Four Star Television. He was offered the part of Dr. Kildare in an NBC series but his prescient request that the show have no cigarette advertising led to the offer being withdrawn, and the part going, in 1961, to Richard Chamberlain. He appeared as the Vice-President in "Advise & Consent" (1962), and in "The Carpetbaggers" (1964), but he was by then primarily a television actor, with only occasional film work.