WASHINGTON — The Trump administration may temporarily shield documents concerning its decision to end a program that protected some 800,000 young, undocumented immigrants from deportation, the Supreme Court ruled Friday in a brief, unsigned order. The court said it would consider the matter further, and it set an expedited briefing schedule.

The vote was 5 to 4. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the court’s four-member liberal wing, issued a 10-page dissent.

The dispute over the documents arose in five consolidated lawsuits in California that accused administration officials of acting unlawfully when they abruptly rescinded the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The plaintiffs include four states — California, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota — and Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California. As secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration, Ms. Napolitano signed the document that established the program in 2012.

Judge William H. Alsup, of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, ordered the administration to turn over internal documents concerning its reasons for canceling the program. A divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the administration’s request to block Judge Alsup’s order, with the majority saying that the few documents provided by the administration had been inadequate in light of the magnitude of the decision to end the program.