WASHINGTON - He calls it the “white noise.” That’s Paul Ryan’s way of blocking out the uproar over President Donald Trump, whose crises and controversies are bedeviling his speakership.

“Sure, drama is not helpful in getting things done, but we’re still getting things done,” Ryan told reporters last week amid a stretch of unparalleled Washington chaos.

“He’s walking on an ice rink and trying to stay upright,” said the speaker’s former GOP colleague, Reid Ribble of Wisconsin.

No politician other than the president has seen his poll ratings decline more than Ryan’s amid the upheaval of the Trump presidency. Arguably, no one’s task has been more complicated by Trump’s turmoil.

“There are more and more minefields coming up for Ryan, compounded by the dragging down of the Republican brand,” said congressional scholar Sarah Binder of George Washington University.

Asked Friday by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt about Democrats’ talk of a “wave election” victory next year, Ryan responded, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah is what I say about that stuff.”

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Ryan sought repeatedly last week to assure people “sitting in their homes” that Congress is “busy doing our work” despite the “white noise out there in the media.” Party leaders believe their only path through the storm is to make good on their promises to GOP voters on issues like health care and taxes.

“If anything, it gets us more focused on doing our jobs,” Ryan said.

But if legislating is the remedy, the party’s challenges were already huge before Trump’s proliferating struggles.

“Legislating this year in Congress from the get-go has been complicated,” said Binder, citing the “factionalized, fractured Republican majority,” a massively polarized Congress and the lack of clear policy direction and expertise in the White House.

Now the president’s bully pulpit has been compromised, congressional investigations are underway and the tumult over Trump and Russia is blocking out the GOP’s political message. That’s a problem for a speaker who has made media and messaging a central part of his job.

“Normally, party leaders keep up the brand by pushing policy that will show what your party can do when they’re in power. That’s where I think Ryan is going to have a very hard time for the rest of the Congress,” Binder said.

Asked whether Republicans now expect the frenzy to persist, Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner said, “That’s up to the president. The president should be using his Twitter account to talk about policy and what he wants to accomplish, rather than responding to real or perceived slights. When you’re in this business, people are going to criticize you. This goes with the territory.”

Back in February, the hosts of "Fox & Friends" got Ryan to say the president’s tweets “are growing on me. Like I tell everybody, this is going to be an unconventional presidency.”

Three months later, Ryan told reporters at a Wisconsin appearance, “I'm not going to comment on the tweets of the day, or of the hour."

Sensenbrenner, who is close to Ryan, said the “problem is we are responding to all of those (controversies) rather than talking about the policy.”

Asked how big a challenge that poses for the party right now, Sensenbrenner said, “It’s higher than the border wall.”

Sensenbrenner said Ryan’s “worst day” was when he had to pull the health care bill in March on his first attempt to get it through the House (the second try succeeded earlier this month).

“It’s the toughest job in Washington. … He’s had a tough two months. I think he has weathered it fairly well,” said Sensenbrenner, who has served longer than all but one Republican in Congress.

“The reality is it’s been (Ryan’s) lifelong dream to do tax reform,” said Ribble, a Republican but vocal Trump critic who retired from Congress before this session. “He’s trying to navigate this so that whatever happens here the next two years, they try to get that through.”

After sharply criticizing Trump at several turns in last year’s campaign, Ryan assumed the role of supporting ally and partner once Trump took office. He doesn’t appear to be second-guessing that approach.

At a news conference last week, the speaker walked a delicate line. He promised Congress would do its investigative duties and “follow the facts where they lead us.” But he echoed Trump’s own grievances, saying, “there are some people out there who want to harm the president.”

Asked if he still had full faith in Trump, Ryan said, “I do.”

That stance has helped him hold on to the backing of his caucus and a majority of GOP voters nationally. Ryan and his supporters have viewed a strong relationship with Trump as the only course for a Republican speaker trying to carry out the party’s agenda during its precious window in power.

But Ryan’s stance has drawn withering criticism from Democrats, who assert he has shown “zero appetite” for oversight of the president.

“He is the one … who’s allowing Trump to get away with all this stuff and not standing up (to him) like he did during the campaign,” said Wisconsin Democrat Mark Pocan, who grew up in Ryan’s district and represents the district next door. “I feel like some alien creature has invaded the Paul Ryan that I knew.”

It has also bruised what was a pretty distinctive political brand, one that combined ideological appeal to conservative voters, interest groups and commentators with reliably positive media treatment and (for a Republican) a measure of likability among Democrats.

But Ryan’s determination to steer clear of Trump's blowups has generated the worst coverage of his career, spawned parodies on late-night TV and drawn searing criticism from a small but vocal slice of the conservative media that is aghast at Trump and regards the party leadership as deluded “enablers.”

Complicating things is that the issue at the core of the president’s problems – Russia – is one where Trump (with his openness and affinity for Russia) and Ryan (a self-professed Russia “hawk”) actually diverge quite dramatically.

A 2016 tape was leaked last week to the Washington Post of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggesting in a private meeting with Ryan and others that Trump was being paid by Russian leader Vladimir Putin; aides to Ryan and McCarthy said it was a bad joke.

In national polling by Quinnipiac, Ryan retains a favorable image among GOP voters. But that may be fragile. The Republican base has been gravitating from Ryan-style conservatism to Trump-style populism, and its support for Ryan could ebb if Trump turns on him or Congress fails to deliver.

Meanwhile, Ryan’s ratings among independents have slid from positive to negative since he became speaker, and his unfavorable rating among Democrats has soared from 42% to 77%.

Ryan’s polling numbers are following the downward path of speakers before him, who didn’t have a president in their own party with the baggage, turmoil and early stumbles of Trump.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that he’s not only paid (a price) already but he’ll continue to pay one,” Ribble said of Ryan. “If you just look at the history of speakers, they all come in on a high and they all go out on a low. There’s nothing that would lead me to believe that won’t happen to Paul.”