 Other business interests included William Ewart Investments Ltd, Belfast (1973–77); chairman and Ewart New Northern Ltd, Belfast (1973–77).Ten years later his wife died and, in the wake of this, Sir Ivan went to East Africa to work with Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (for which he was East Africa's Resident Representative) and later at the Freda Carr Hospital in Uganda.Sir Ivan was also president of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry (The papers of Enoch Powell), a Northern Ireland Delegate to "the Duke of Edinburgh's Study Conference on the Human Problems of Industrial Communities within the Commonwealth and Empire" at Oxford in 1956, President of the Church of Ireland's Young Men's Society, 1951–61 and Chairman of the Flax Spinners Association.