It still remains a big challenge to improve the toughness and flame retardancy of cyanate ester (CE) resin through a simple and effective method without sacrificing its excellent dielectric properties and thermal stability. New modified CE resins were facilely developed through melt-blending with phenolphthalein type polyarylether sulfone (cPES), and the integrated performances including the reactivity, mechanical, dielectric, thermal and flame retarding properties were systematically investigated. Results show that compared with CE resin, cPES/CE resins have 1.2-3.2 times higher impact strengths according to the concentration of cPES on the base of maintaining good thermal stability, high modulus, low dielectric constant and loss. Through analyzing thermogravimetric kinetics, cone calorimeter tests, structures of chars and pyrolysis gases, it proves that the addition of cPES into CE resin brings greatly increased difficulty of catching fire, reflected by the time to ignition (TTI), fire performance index (FPI) and fire growth index (FGI); while once ignited, cPES/CE resin exhibits a bigger heat release rate and total heat release. These attractive results demonstrate that cPES is a multi-functional modifier of CE resin. The origin behind was systematically revealed through discussing the influence of cPES on the structure of crosslinked network.