With NBC News, Neely was part of the team that won a prestigious Peabody Award for "Continuing Coverage of ISIS" in 2014. Neely reported less than seventy yards from the ISIS front line in Northern Iraq. In 2015 and 2016 he reported on the terrorist massacres in Paris, Nice and Brussels, two plane crashes in Egypt, the GermanWings plane crash in France and Europe's migration crisis. He was part of the Nightly News team that won the Edward R. Murrow Award for reports after the Paris attacks of January 2015. He interviewed President Assad of Syria in July 2016 and covered the fall of Aleppo from the city in December 2016. He has interviewed senior officials from North Korea during four trips to the country in 2016–2017. Neely has received eight Emmy nominations, including for work on the Brussels terror attacks in 2016 and in the Best Interview category for his exclusive interview with Syria's President Assad. Neely reported on the Coronavirus crisis from Hong Kong, Italy, London and Brazil.