It saw some, but mostly accidental until very late in the war. The main role of the Me-262 was defence against daylight bombing raids (i.e., against US heavy bombers and their escorts). Other types of operations included ground attack, e.g., I./KG 51 flew Me-262 sorties against an RAF airfield in the Netherlands in Operation Bodenplatte, and escorted Arado Ar-234 jet bombers in attacks on the Rhine bridge at Remagen after its capture.

There was incident combat with Soviet aircraft during this time. For example, this could occur during training flights, as training flights were carried out away from US and British fighters, which meant that they were flown near the Eastern Front (which was very close at the time). Johannes Steinhoff described encountering and (unsuccessfully) fighting Soviet fighters during training flights, and also encountering and shooting down Soviet ground attack aircraft, in his autobiographical In letzter Stunde (published in English as The Last Chance and The Final Hours). The high-scoring Soviet ace Ivan Kozhedub shot down an Me-262 on 17th February 1945, north of Frankfurt an der Oder. This might have been one of Jagdgeschwader 7's aircraft, since they flew in this area for training (their airfield was near Brandenburg, to the west of Berlin, where the photovoltaic power station Brandenburg-Briest Solarpark is today). Jagdverband 44 also flew from that airfield, but had not yet been formed in February.

Jagdgeschwader 7 moved east in mid-April, to bases near Prague and in modern western Poland (near Iłowa (formerly Halbau)). In the last week of April, JG7 and other Me-262 units flew ground-attack missions against Soviet forces. At low altitude, they were vulnerable to fighters, and also to ground fire, and over a dozen aircraft were lost. Some Soviet aircraft were attacked and shot down, as targets incidental to the main mission of ground attack. I have seen claims of between 8 and thirteen Il-2s shot down in these missions. A little later, on 8th May, JG7 claimed one Soviet fighter shot down, Yak-9. The Soviets lost two P-39 Airacobras in the area at that time, so that "Yak-9" was probably a P-39.

These late operations don't feature in Steinhoff's book, since (a) JV44 in which he was flying was based near Munich at the time, and not involved, and (b) his plane crashed and burned on takeoff on 18th April 1945, ending his WWII career.