At ControlPanel.systems we run multiple different versions of PHP.
On our SSH servers, the execution of commands like "composer" will run with our default, system-level PHP that is also used for internal tools at https://cp.controlpanel.systems/ This is a thin version of PHP without all the modules you may be used-to on your website. To enable use of this command, you need to specify the full path to the version of PHP that you wish to run the script as. You can do this on the command line itself.
Here's an example of using PHP 7.1 to execute Composer:
/usr/bin/php71 -f /usr/bin/composer
So the complete command would become:
/usr/bin/php71 -f /usr/bin/composer install
A list of available PHP versions is presented to you in the message of the day (MOTD) once you login to SSH.
Composer 2.0
Composer 2.0 is available across the platform. To use composor 2.0 you need to invoke "composer2" instead of "composer", as follows:
/usr/local/bin/composer2