Passage was published, second one to appear in Times? (7)
I believe the answer is:
transit
'passage' is the definition.
(I know that passage can be written as transit)
'published second one to appear in times?' is the wordplay.
'published' becomes 'ran' (running is a kind of publishing).
'second' becomes 's' (common abbreviation).
'one' becomes 'I' (Roman numeral).
'to appear in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'times?' becomes 'tt' (an abbreviation for time written twice).
'ran'+'s'+'i'='ransi'
'ransi' put inside 'tt' is 'TRANSIT'.
'was' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for transit that I've seen before include "carriage" , "Pass across" , "Crossing - passage" , "In - - (en route)" , "Pass through; van" .)