After studying at the university of Prague he travelled through Europe, and among other countries he visited England, where he became acquainted with James Hope (afterwards Hope-Scott) and other leaders of the Tractarian party.
In the previous year the Tractarian movement had commenced, and Ward's relations with that movement were as original as the rest of his life.
In 1839 Ward became the editor of the British Critic, the organ of the Tractarian party, and he excited suspicion among the adherents of the Tractarians themselves by his violent denunciations of the Church to which he still belonged.
The "Tractarian Movement" had set in five years earlier, but the memorable tract, No.
With Dean Church he may be said to have restored the waning influence of the Tractarian school, and he succeeded in popularizing the opinions which, in the hands of Pusey and Keble, had appealed to thinkers and scholars.