Muir worked at Frank Cass &amp; Co, a specialist international politics academic publishing company, in London between 1970 and 1974. Muir drove to Beirut after Christmas 1974, assuming Lebanon to be a safe haven in the turbulent Arab world. However, not long after arriving, a devastating 15-year civil war broke out. Muir was the Beirut correspondent for the Inter Press Service between 1975 and 1978, and then became a freelance correspondent for the BBC, "Sunday Times", "Daily Telegraph", "Christian Science Monitor", and National Public Radio, among others. In 1980, Muir had to relocate to Cyprus and make periodic visits to Lebanon after being put on a Syrian hitlist. Muir is thought to be "the only western correspondent to cover the [civil war] from start to finish".