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When British forces occupied Princeton in 1776 at the outset of the Revolution the college was closed and the students and professors returned home. Houston then joined with the militia of nearby Somerset County and saw action in the area. He was later elected Captain of one of their companies. When the British withdrew from New Jersey in 1777 and the college reopened, he returned to his teaching post.Houston's most significant contributions to rebellion came not as a soldier, however, but as public official in New Jersey and in the revolutionary confederation government. In March 1777 he was elected to the position of Deputy Secretary of the Continental Congress, serving under Charles Thomson, and continued in the post until September, when Somerset County sent him to the New Jersey General Assembly as one of its three representatives. He remained active in the Assembly, gradually gaining greater and greater committee responsibilities, until May 1779, when he and Abraham Clark were elected as New Jersey representatives to the Continental Congress (replacing Frederick Frelinghuysen and Elias Dayton). He played a particularly active role in Congress through July 1781, when he became seriously ill, and then served intermittently, through the winter of 1785.

He was elected to represent Somerset County in the New Jersey General Assembly in 1777. In 1778 he served on the state's Committee of Safety. Then from 1779 to 1781 New Jersey sent him as a delegate to the Continental Congress. His work in Congress was largely directed to issues of finance and supply. He began to study law under Richard Stockton and was admitted to the bar in April 1781.^[5]

He returned to the college and also opened a law office in Trenton. During these years he was named as clerk of the New Jersey Supreme Court. In 1783, he resigned from the college to devote himself to his legal career. He returned to the Continental Congress in 1784 and 1785.^[6]

In 1786 Houston was appointed to a commission to study the defects in the Articles of Confederation which joined the states. He went to the Annapolis Convention to discuss the problem. Instead of proposing changes to the articles, this Convention called for a full Constitutional Convention. When the United States Constitutional Convention assembled in 1787, he went to Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania as a delegate. Houston only remained at the convention for a week before his failing health caused him to withdraw.