From 1885 to 1887 Ekman represented the municipalities of Kristinehamn, Askersund, Nora and Lindesberg in the Riksdag's Andra kammare (lower house), and the constituency of Stockholm from 1891 to 1893 and 1894 to 1896. He was a member of the Old Lantmanna Party (1894), Lantmanna Party (1895), and independent (1896). As a supporter of free churches, temperance, free trade, and an opponent of militarism, Ekman played a major role in introducing freethought ideas into Swedish politics. He wrote 25 motions of his own, primarily on issues of religious freedom such as the introduction of compulsory civil marriage, the right to leave the state church and the abolition of the obligation to baptize children. One motion concerned the abolition of the death penalty.Riksdag document CQ2O157 / - Motion 1893:157 Andra kammaren, 28 January 1893. – "By Mr. E. J. Ekman, on letter to his Royal Majesty with a request for the preparation and presentation of proposals for amendments to the criminal code for the abolition of the death penalty...It is only God who is master of life and death. Sovereignty shall, with the sword of justice, administer justice among men. But it does not have the right to take another's life." Ekman was one of the founders of the Swedish parliamentary peace group in 1892 and participated in the Inter-Parliamentary Union's peace conferences in Rome in 1891 and The Hague in 1894. For more than a quarter of a century he was at the forefront of free church activities in Sweden and the promotion of its mission in other countries. In 1899 a conference on the Mission in China was organized, for which a collection of contributions from various missionary organizations was published with a foreword and contributions by Ekman.
