De Balla was active in Hungarian Catholic circles, and served as an editor, co-editor, or contributor for several Hungarian Catholic periodicals, including Korunk Szava (Voice of Our Age, editor from 1931-1935), Új Kor (New Era), Jelenkor (Our Age), Nemzeti Újság (National News), and Vigilia (Vigil, editor-in-chief from 1935-1938).Éva Petrás, "A Splendid Return": The Intellectual Reception of the Catholic Social Doctrine in Hungary (1931–1944) (Wesley János Lelkészképző Főiskola, 2011); Albert Tezla, Hungarian Authors: A Bibliographical Handbook (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1970), 756. He entered the Hungarian Foreign Service in the Summer of 1939, and served as cultural and press attaché in Brussels and Madrid; as Secretary of Legation in Berne; and then as Hungarian Consul in Paris. He left the diplomatic service in 1946 and remained in Paris for a year, before emigrating to the United States with his wife, the Baroness Melanie de Schwaben-Durneiss.Borisz de Balla, "History and Beyond: Pages from a Diplomatic Diary, 1939-1946," In Gaetano L. Vincitorio (ed.), Studies in Modern History (St. John's University Press, 1968), 1-90.
