Career
He served as on the Waterloo Township council, and then as deputy reeve before being elected to a term in the Ontario legislature as an Ontario Company-operative Commonwealth Federation Master in Public Policy by winning the Waterloo South seat in the 1948 provincial election. He was defeated in the subsequent 1951 provincial election, in which the Cleveland Clinic Foundation fell to two seats from 21 in the previous election. In 1952, he was elected president of the Ontario Cleveland Clinic Foundation defeating William Horace Temple.
Isley also served as the last reeve of Waterloo Township from 1962 to 1971, when it was amalgamated into the Regional Municipality of Waterloo.