Speaker Ryan: Trump's riot predictions 'unacceptable'

11 Things to Know About a Contested Convention

What is a contested convention?

A contested (or “brokered”; there's not a difference these days) convention occurs when no candidate obtains enough delegates to receive the nomination before the party’s national convention. A candidate needs 1,237 delegates of the 2,472 delegates to become the nominee. For the Republican Party, only Donald Trump seems to have a realistic shot to reach that goal before the Republican National Convention July 18-21 in Cleveland. less 11 Things to Know About a Contested Convention

What is a contested convention?

A contested (or “brokered”; there's not a difference these days) convention occurs when no candidate obtains enough delegates ... more What is a contested convention? Photo: Nati Harnik, AP Photo: Nati Harnik, AP Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Speaker Ryan: Trump's riot predictions 'unacceptable' 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday denounced GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's assertions that his supporters would riot if he won the primary vote and lost in a contested convention.

Ryan also acknowledged that that scenario — where the primary vote fails to yield a winner, leaving delegates to re-vote at the party's July convention — "is more likely...than we thought before."

RELATED: Donald Trump predicts 'riots' if GOP convention picks alternate nominee

Amid a similar sentiment growing in political circles, Trump told CNN Wednesday that if he arrived to the convention with the most committed delegates and left without the nomination, "I think you'd have riots. I think you'd have riots."

His comments came as news reports say groups of powerful Republicans are gathering with plans to block Trump's increasingly likely claim to the party's nomination. A contested convention, most experts say, is the last remaining hope for party figures anxious not to see Trump at their helm.

If no candidate wins a majority of the 2,472 GOP delegates after a first round of voting, then many will be free to vote as they like — not as they were delegated to vote — on a second ballot. Virtually all would be unbound by a third ballot. That raises the possibility that Trump's plurality of delegates turn away from him and elect an alternate nominee.

RELATED: Growing chance of contested GOP convention puts added focus on delegates

But Ryan, who will chair the convention, recently pushed back hard against any notion that he could be in the running for the party's presidential nominee. He went on to condemn Trump's rhetoric.

"Nobody should say such things, in my opinion," he said at a news conference in response to a question about Trump's comment. "Because to even address or hint to violence is unacceptable."