Just broadcast the pair operator:
julia> transform!(df, [:a, :c] .=> (x -> 2x) .=> [:a, :c])
3×3 DataFrame
Row │ a b c
│ Int64 Int64 Int64
─────┼─────────────────────
1 │ 2 4 14
2 │ 4 5 16
3 │ 6 6 18
(no need for ByRow as you can just double the whole vector).