On January 4, 2012, President Barack Obama appointed Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He resigned as bureau director on November 24, 2017.

Cordray announced in June 2008 that he would run to serve the remaining unexpired term of Nancy Rogers. On election night, he defeated Republican challenger Mike Crites, receiving 57 percent of the vote.

Cordray defeated Republican Sandra O'Brien for state treasurer in what became a state-wide sweep for the state Democrats in 2006. During the campaign, Cordray merged field staffs and produced a joint mailer with Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

In 2002, Cordray became the first Democrat in a quarter-century to be elected Franklin County treasurer, replacing Republican Wade Steen, who just a year earlier had been appointed to the position following the health-related resignation of Bobbie M. Hall. Cordray won by a margin of 3,232 votes. Throughout the campaign, Cordray said that Steen had failed to "collect more than $44 million in delinquent property taxes." He won re-election two years later, receiving 64 percent of the vote against Republican Jim Timko.

Cordray was elected to the Ohio Democratic Party Central Committee for the state's 15th Congressional District in 1996. That same year he was on the short list for United States attorney general along with Kent Markus and Sharon Zealey, who ultimately received the appointment. He ran for state attorney general in 1998; he received the Democratic nomination, running unopposed, but was defeated by incumbent Republican Betty Montgomery, who received 62 percent of the vote.

In September 1993, Cordray became the first individual appointed as Ohio's solicitor general, a state governmental office created in an effort to relieve the level of state appellate work. Selected by the state's attorney general, the solicitor's main responsibility was to argue cases before both the state Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. His most notable was his second, Hanlon v. Berger (1999), which questioned the constitutionality of media ride-alongs with law enforcement officials.

In 1990, Cordray was elected to the Ohio State House of Representatives for the 33rd Congressional District, unseating six-term incumbent Republican Don Gilmore. He simultaneously taught courses at both Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and Georgetown University. After the state Apportionment Board redrew state legislative districts in 1991 and landed Cordray in one with a 22-year incumbent, he chose not to run for re-election.

Instead, he campaigned for the United States House of Representatives seat in Ohio's 15th Congressional Distric,t held at the time by outgoing Republican Chalmers Wylie. He defeated Bill Buckel for the Democratic nomination, but he lost the general election contest to Republican Deborah D. Pryce.

Two years later, he chose to run for the United States Senate in the hopes of replacing one-term incumbent Republican Mike DeWine. Cordray placed third in a four-way contest for the Democratic nomination, behind Ted Celeste (brother of former-governor, Dick Celeste) and Rev. Marvin McMickle, but ahead of last-minute entry Dan Radakovich.