While Tristan Ewins was a member of the ALP Socialist Left, he engaged with people from across the democratic left with a view to developing programs and strategies for democratic socialism. He was a member of the SEARCH (Social Education and Research Concerning Humanity) Foundation and tried to bring the thought of leading SEARCH intellectuals such as the late Eric Aarons to a wider left audience.

Tristan constantly maintained that there was more to Marx, and more variety in the political and intellectual currents that could broadly be called Marxist, than claimed by those who would reduce Marxism and socialist to the crimes and failures of Stalinism. In a 2019 article he wrote that his “personal sympathies are with the ‘Left Social Democrats’ – such as the Austro-Marxists, who were definitely Marxists – and definitely not Bolsheviks or Stalinists .. it’s possible to establish that you’re influenced by Marxism without saying you’re a Stalinist, a Bolshevik, a Maoist, or even a Trotskyistv… Personally, I sometimes call myself a Left Social Democrat. And that’s completely sincere as I’ve already explained earlier. The terms ‘revolutionary social democrat’ and ‘democratic socialist’ also sincerely apply."