KIEV, Ukraine — When two elderly women started shouting at President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, interrupting questions from journalists about his summer call to President Trump with complaints about a local mayor, the young Ukrainian leader made clear where his priorities lay.

Mr. Zelensky, whose political party is called Servant of the People, abandoned the journalists and his exasperated press secretary and went over to hear the women out, ordering his aides to take down their information and determine how to address their concerns.

The scene unfolded in the course of a daylong news conference that Mr. Zelensky hosted at a food court in central Kiev, part of an effort to take back control of his narrative and refocus attention on domestic priorities amid the firestorm surrounding his interactions with President Trump.

This is not where Mr. Zelensky expected to be when he took office last May. A popular comedian and actor, who played a president on TV before he entered the race for Ukraine’s actual presidency last year, Mr. Zelenksy had anticipated becoming embroiled in ferocious battles with Ukraine’s oligarchs over endemic corruption and going head-to-head with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.