1. They didn’t understand what Mr. Palmer’s plan would lead to or why he was trying to involve them, so finally they asked him to lay his cards on the table
2. When the boss had been strangely quiet for several weeks, the workers knew that something must have been going on. One day she called a meeting and told them that now she could lay her cards on the table

The expression originates from the idea of a card game in which one must reveal one’s cards by laying them on the table.