The emergency measure, the first of its kind since Brazil returned to democracy after the end of a military dictatorship in the mid-1980s, comes amid rising violence and a spike in crime.
It takes effect immediately and will last until the end of the year, the government announced on Friday.
Temer, who officially signed the order during a televised ceremony, said his government "will take all necessary steps to confront and defeat organised crime and gangs".
"There is no way out, we can't wait one more day," Rio de Janeiro Governor Luiz Fernando Pezao also said, as quoted by Brazilian newspaper O Globo.
The order was quickly criticised by opposition figures, however, who derided it as a cynical move by the widely unpopular and scandal-plagued Temer, whose approval rating hovers around five percent, to look presidential in an election year.
Brazil's security crisis will likely be a deciding factor in October's general elections, with law-and-order candidates gaining in popularity.
It is also understood that a long-awaited pension reform vote, thought necessary to get Brazil's public finances in check, will be delayed because of the security intervention.
"Temer uses a very serious problem, which is security in Rio de Janeiro, to try to take his government from the mud. He doesn't have the votes for pension reform and sought a way out to camouflage his failure," Ivan Valente, a left-wing opposition congressman, said on Twitter.
Source: Aljazeera News
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