The phrase "an ancillary role" is correct and commonly used in written English.
It refers to a support or secondary role in a situation or organization. Example: Sarah took on an ancillary role in the marketing department, assisting with research and data analysis for the team.
But in an ancillary role, Barnes can excel as a one-trick pony.
Hinault pledged to support LeMond after the American's work in helping him to a fifth Tour in 1985 but 'the Badger' found an ancillary role hard to countenance.
A high proportion of her written work sees her in an ancillary role, as researcher, translator, editor, typist even, of other writers' work.
The book mostly avoids discussing poetry, and Barcelona, a city famous for its vibrant cultural underground, is given only an ancillary role.
He'll never be a matchup nightmare, but in an ancillary role he has the frame and tools to consistently beat linebackers and B-grade cover safeties.
Holt's people are beyond help, and medicine has only an ancillary role in this forsaken world: science can devise no potion for malaise, for hubris, for the disintegration of God.
Based on previous thermodynamic analyses, it has been speculated that discrete protein protein interactions might play an important ancillary role in the CV-N/gp120 binding event, in addition to the interactions of CV-N with specific oligosaccharides present on gp120.
Such an apparently ancillary role of Rpn13 is in agreement with its location in the distal part of the complex (Lasker et al. 2012).
Another official said that if the U.S. insisted on running Iraq itself while having the U.N. serve only an "ancillary" function, "we are quite prepared to confine ourselves to a humanitarian role and wish you the best of luck".
That is why, we posit, the social sciences and humanities are so often viewed as playing a mere ancillary role (Felt 2014).
How often do we equate the word "father" with "caretaker?" Until fairly recently, most men were expected to garner power, fame and fortune outside of the house, and serve a more ancillary role in raising kids.
