Abstract: Method and apparatus for adjusting the lay of a wire rope, in which a torque remaining in the wire rope is detected while the wire rope is drawn out from a reel, and the lay of the wire rope is increased or decreased in accordance with the result of the detection to remove the residual torque; further, the pitch of lay of the wire rope after increasing or decreasing of the lay is measured, then the lay is increased so that the pitch of lay becomes smaller by a predetermined amount than the measured pitch of lay, and the pitch of lay before increasing of the lay is measured continuously in this state. When the residual torque becomes zero in the above torque control, the operation shifts to the above pitch control, and when the measured pitch of lay before increasing of the lay exceeds a predetermined range in the pitch control, the operation shifts to the torque control.