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Nicholas Schmidle said in Washington that he never felt unsafe in Pakistan until last week, when security men and police officers started knocking at his door, telling him to leave the country.
"It was raining real hard and the policemen said we are here to take you and your wife to the airport," Schmidle told a gathering at the New America Foundation.
A police officer, who came to Schmidle's residence in Islamabad on January 8, had a deportation order but it did not explain why he and his wife were ordered to leave Pakistan, local daily Dawn reported on Wednesday.
The day before, Schmidle recalled, an ISI officer had stopped by when he was not at home. "He told my security guard that my visa had been cancelled as I was writing against Pakistan."
Schmidle was in Pakistan since February 2006 on a writing fellowship from the Institute of Current World Affairs while his wife, Rikki, was studying at the Islamic University in Islamabad.
He said he believed his article "Next Gen Taliban", published in the New York Times on January 6, may have ticked off Pakistani officials.
"You can criticise the government as much as you want to from your armchair, but when you start digging out things, it's a problem," he said.
Pakistani authorities have said Schmidle had to leave the country because he did not have a journalist visa. They also said he left on his own and was not deported.
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