Early days of the Meiji era? The 廃刀令 (Order to restrict carrying of sword) was issued in Meiji 9, 1876, with the earliest discussion to going all the way back in Meiji 3, 1870.

The order restricted carrying to sword to soldiers and police.

On top of that, the Meiji restoration had a important policy that is to strip the power of the local lords (and samurais by extension), that was policy that long stood since Meiji 4.

I think you might want to revise the era in the question, and I think someone else should be able to answer the question. But your question is definitely not applicable in the vast majority of the Meiji era. Seeing that most of them were stripped their powers pretty early. I unfortunately lack in-depth knowledge in anything pre-Meiji.

I'm talking about during the Sengoku Jidai and the Tokugawa periods.

Bushido was more a question than an answer to many samurai and many were practitioners of Zen Buddhism.

But much like European chivalry there was a common idea of Bushido that ran through the warrior class and was adhered to to greater and lesser degrees by various samurai.

During the Sengoku Jidai (literally the Age of the Country at War), when Japan was unifying under one Shogun, samurai were mostly soldiers (bushi), and most saw action as the country underwent a series of wars and battles as multiple different Daimyo tried to seize power all across Japan.

After Tokugawa took power his reforms were designed to limit power of the Daimyo so while he demanded Daimyo to retain certain levels of samurai bushi he also taxed them more in various ways and slowly strangled them with expenses like maintaining certain levels of samurai who weren't allowed to go to war unless the Shogun decided to war, which was rare as war during the Tokugawa era was very rare compared to the Sengoku Jidai.

Thus, samurai ended up less soldiers and more retainers, although fighting schools became more common as did duels and duelists like the great Musashi. Bushido remained popular amongst some and the famous real life 47 Ronin did actually commit ritual suicide to protest th unfair death of their former master after they sought revenge on the man they held responsible for their master's demise.

The famous book Hagakure, the Book of Leaves (or hidden leaves), was written in the early 1700's and outlines bushido as a series of short stories used as teaching examples from conversations between two samurai, a young man, the author, and an older master. It talks about the change in society from a country in constant war to a more peaceful one and seems to be searching for how a samurai should live with Bushido during a peaceful time like during the Tokugawa Shogunate.

It's also important to note that right after Tokugawa Iieyasu unified Japan that there were hundreds of thousands, if not a million ronin, or disposed warriors, from the losing Western Daimyo, roaming the countryside. Many samurai believed that if your master died and you had no one to serve you should commit seppuku. And obviously, thousands did not, and thus failed to follow the most hardcore tenants of the code.

It's clear from books like Hagakure, numerous examples of death poems and records of ritual suicide, and many examples of those who did not do such things, that samurai varied from person to person and while some took Bushido very seriously others did not, just like many codes and beliefs in human life. :-)