House Speaker Paul Ryan talking to the press on Tuesday night after his primary win. Screenshot/C-SPAN House Speaker Paul Ryan dismissed Donald Trump's suggestion that gun owners could stop Hillary Clinton from picking Supreme Court justices, saying Trump's comments sounded like "a joke gone bad."

At a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, Trump was describing Clinton as a threat to the Second Amendment when he suggested that gun owners could take matters into their own hands.

He said: "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is. I don't know."

Ryan, speaking with the press Tuesday night after his Wisconsin primary win, said he hadn't heard the Republican presidential nominee's remarks and "only heard about those comments."

"I've been a little busy today," Ryan said. "I heard about this Second Amendment quote. It sounds like just a joke gone bad. I hope he clears it up very quickly. You should never joke about something like that."

Prominent Democrats were quick to denounce Trump's comments as an assassination threat, though Trump and his surrogates insisted that he was referring to "a political movement" and not violent action.

Watch Ryan's comments below: