Following his theological studies, M‘Neile was ordained in 1820 by his future father-in-law, William Magee (1766–1831) – who, at that time, was the Church of Ireland's Bishop of Raphoe – and served as a curate in Stranorlar, County Donegal from 1820 to 1821. Early in 1822, his preaching in London so impressed the banker and parliamentarian Henry Drummond (1786–1860) that Drummond appointed M‘Neile to the living of the parish of Albury, Surrey, from where M‘Neile's first collection of sermons, "Seventeen Sermons, etc.", were published in 1825.