skating on thin ice

To actually, physically skate on thin ice, if one is on the surface of a fozen pond or lake, is to risk breaking through the thin ice, and putting one's life at risk through drowning or hypothermia.

Therefore, the figurative expression means to take risks, and it usually means to take such risks unnecessarily. If someone wrote "there was some skating on thin ice," that person means that in the situation being described, some people took risks, and probably knowingly took those risks, and probably took those risks unnecessarily.