her B5Ns attacked a British oil tanker south of Davao. In January 1942 her aircraft supported Japanese operations in the Malay Peninsula. In mid-February 1942, Ryūjōs aircraft attacked ships evacuating from Singapore, claiming eight ships damaged, three burnt, and four sunk. They also covered convoys carrying troops to Sumatra. The ship was unsuccessfully attacked by several Bristol Blenheim light bombers of No. 84 Squadron RAF on 14 February. The following day two waves of B5Ns, totaling 13 aircraft, attacked the British heavy cruiser , but managed only to damage the ship's Supermarine Walrus seaplane. Follow-on attacks the same day were also unsuccessful. Two days later, B5Ns destroyed , a Dutch destroyer that had run aground in the Gaspar Strait and been abandoned on 14 February. The carrier sailed to Saigon, French Indochina, the next day and arrived on 20 February. A week later she was assigned to cover the convoy taking troops to Jakarta, Java. Her aircraft participated in the Second Battle of the Java Sea on 1 March and six B5Ns sank the American destroyer after it had been abandoned by its crew. Six other B5Ns bombed the port of Semarang, possibly setting one merchantman on fire. Ryūjō arrived in Singapore on 5 March and the ship supported operations in Sumatra and escorted convoys to Burma and the Andaman Islands for the rest of the month. On 1 April, while the 1st Air Fleet was starting its raid in the Indian Ocean, Malay Force, consisting of Ryūjō, six cruisers, and four destroyers, left Burma on a mission to destroy merchant shipping in the Bay of Bengal. B5Ns damaged one freighter on 5 April before the force split into three groups. Ryūjōs aircraft bombed the small ports of Cocanada and Vizagapatam on the southeastern coast of India the next day, doing little damage, in addition to claiming two ships sunk and six more damaged during the day. The carrier and her escorts, the light cruiser and the destroyer , claimed to have sunk three more ships by gunfire. All together, Malay Force sank 19 ships totaling almost , before reuniting on 7 April and arriving at Singapore on 11 April. A week later, her B5Ns were detached for torpedo training and the ship arrived at Kure on 23 April for a brief refit. The newly commissioned carrier joined Carrier Division 4, under the command of Kakuta, with Ryūjō on 3