Can Paul Ryan preside over a GOP convention so far from his own style and substance?

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan speaks during an interview June 2 in Janesville, Wis.

July 19, 2016 8:19 AM PT

Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Cleveland — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan spent a career honing an image as one of Washington’s most serious, likable and wonkish Republicans.

At a recent fundraising dinner, he dazzled finance industry leaders by sparring for more than an hour over the intricacies of monetary policy.

He used his leadership position this year to turn the House into an incubator for GOP policies on poverty and taxes. During the mud-slinging Republican primary, he implored presidential candidates to “raise our gaze.”

On Tuesday, however, Ryan will preside as chairman at a convention for a Republican nominee who could not be further apart in style and substance from the 46-year old Wisconsin congressman.

As Ryan conceded just days ago, Donald Trump is “not my kind of conservative.” He previously called Trump’s attack on an American-born judge of Mexican descent the “textbook definition of racism.”

From reality TV stars to Donald Trump’s wife, catch up quick on the opening day of the GOP convention. More coverage at latimes.com/trailguide

And only after a very public hand-wringing did the 2012 vice presidential nominee reluctantly agree to endorse Trump with a logic that only a debate champ might appreciate: he called it a “binary choice” of either supporting Trump despite misgivings, or helping Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“We all have different ideas of how to get there,” Ryan told a small group at a downtown Cleveland event on the first day of the convention. “We have different principles and political philosophies. At the end of the day, what this is really all about is leaving things better off than when we found it.”

Here is Ryan’s challenge now: Can he unify a fractured Republican convention already boycotted by most of the party’s biggest names and where a small band of insurgents are still fighting to block Trump’s nomination; and can he inject some of his own traditional GOP policy prescriptions into an inexperienced, unpredictable and often hostile presidential campaign whose positions sometimes contradict long-standing Republican ideology?

The task is a risky one for Ryan. While he may succeed in holding the party together, helping to elevate Trump’s White House bid, it could come at the expense of the core GOP principles that have been Ryan’s life’s work.

At stake is not only Ryan’s brand as the keeper of conservative ideology of Washington, but also the future of the Republican Party. His differences with Trump over trade, immigration and the treatment of Muslims and other minorities are stark.

“The party’s at a real inflection moment and the outcome is not clear,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster and strategist aligned with House Republicans. “One of the things that Ryan is trying to do is at least have something – some clear policy direction here – that Republicans can use that’s a structure for maintaining the Republican coalition – at least at the congressional level.”

Foremost for Ryan is protecting his Republican majority in Congress, including the biggest House majority in generations, as lawmakers face voters this fall in the Trump era.

To that end, the speaker has been working feverishly to raise funds – which is why he appeared before the financial industry donors recently – and provide lawmakers with an alternative platform to run their campaigns.

Even before Trump became the nominee, the speaker turned the House majority into a think tank on Capitol Hill, doing what he does best — churning out a GOP agenda, “Better Way,” that offers policies on taxes, healthcare, poverty and other issues lawmakers can discuss with voters back home.

The hope is the platform gives Republicans something to talk about — instead of having to react to the latest outburst or Tweet-storm from Trump.

“His instincts are right — always bring it back to ideas, always bring it back to providing people a vision for how to make America better,” said Kevin Madden, a former aide to Romney and previous Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

“He may not be successful in having the presidential nominee stick to that playbook, but he can have impact on the overall environment Republicans are going to run in and putting ideas front and center.”

On Tuesday, Ryan will showcase those ideas in a prime-time speaking slot from the convention in Cleveland.

A Ryan aide familiar with the speaker’s remarks said Ryan ”will talk about the sense of urgency that our party should feel in such a consequential election.”

2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland

“The speaker will call for a contest of ideas this fall and talk about the better way that Republicans are offering the country,” the aide said. “He will also argue that we can make the changes we need only with Republican majorities in Congress and Donald Trump in the White House.”

“And finally, the speaker will make a call for unity, not just as Republicans but as a country as well.”

The speaker is popular among rank-and-file lawmakers who appreciate his willingness to take center stage at a time when many of them prefer to avoid tough questions.

But as the convention opened Monday, Ryan notably skipped presiding over the convention’s first day when a raucous floor flight erupted in opposition to Trump’s nomination. Ryan’s schedule had been set earlier, aides said, but his absence enabled him to avoid taking sides in the messy showdown.

“It’s not fun,” said Michael Steel, a former top aide to Boehner and Trump rival Jeb Bush.

“This was the year that a reform-minded conservative presidential nominee, against an incredibly flawed Democratic nominee, had a chance of winning the White House,” Steel said, adding the speaker’s job is to help his fellow Republicans win races, “regardless who is at the top of the ticket.

“The speaker and his staff have helped adroitly with that, under the circumstances.”