Daly was a talented draughtsman and part of the so-called 'East Kent School', ,along with John Sergeant and John Ward, whom he met at the Royal College of Art in 1937. The group of like-minded painters shared an emphasis on technical skill, when London's evolving contemporary art scene seemed to increasingly favour stunts over sincerity. Although Daly's taste ranged from the early Italians, to Ingres, through to the then-unfashionable Edward Burne-Jones, 'No one ever really influenced Jehan and his remarkable work didn't change... With a stub of pencil he would sit and look, and look, and look, then make a couple of marks. There was not much there, but what was there was enormously telling, coming from a tremendous perception’ (John Ward).