He was the son of a former secretary of the South Sea Company. William Kearns, quoting Flynn's "The Catholic Church in N.J." (1904), mentions him as "a Catholic priest, who had exercised unostentatiously his sacred ministry in New Jersey, and had been engaged for about twelve months in teaching at Burlington, New Jersey." Albert J. Menendez identifies Ury as a Non-juring High Church Anglican Vicar who supported the House of Stuart's claim to the British throne and opposed the Glorious Revolution of 1689. Martin I.J. Griffin says "Ury was not a Roman Catholic priest, but a non-juror of the Church of England and a graduate of Cambridge University".