HMS Rye swept ahead of the Sicily landings in July 1943 and later off Italy. She left Malta in early October 1943 with a small convoy to Gibraltar. Whilst acting as escort on the north side of the convoy and laying a smoke screen, she ran out of smoke canisters and was ordered to swap places with her "chummy ship" HMS Hythe, which was on the south side of the convoy. That night Hythe was torpedoed and sunk. Rye picked up twelve survivors, two of whom subsequently died. HMS Hythe, under Lt.Cdr. L. B. Miller, sank on 11th October 1943 off Bougie, Algeria. She had been torpedoed by U-371.

Rye left Gibraltar on Christmas Eve 1943 on passage to the UK. In the Straits of Gibraltar she was in collision with one of three American Liberty Ships comning in and Rye's bow was severely damaged. She sailed, damaged, to the Azores, where her bows were filled with concrete, and like that she steamed back to the UK, to Troon, where a new bow was fitted.

NORMANDY 1944 HMS Rye, under the command of Lt. F. Williams, joined the 14th MS Flotilla assigned to clear the cross channel seaways for the invading forces. She swept the "Omamha" beachhead ahead of the American landing craft and then took part in keeping open the approach seaways that the enemy was frequently re-mining. The sweeping was interspersed with escort duty between the UK and "Omamha". On one occasion she came under particularly heavy bombardment from shore batteries and had to beat a hasty retreat, cutting her sweeps. The flotilla worked its way down to Brest, where Rye was anchored for six weeks and was virtually "Brest Radio Station" for that area of the Allied Armies. The Telegraphists worked a tiring "four hours on, four off" watch for six weeks. After taking part in clearing the coastal waters towards Belgium and Holland, she spent four weeks under going a refit at Flushing.

In May 1945 she was at Stavanger clearing anti-submarine mines, when two German U-boats came into harbour and surrendered to her. She then came home to Edinburgh, and then down to Swansea to sweep the Bristol Channel area. HMS Rye was paid of in Swansea in 1946.