PROVIDENCE, R.I. — On a day when fresh controversies besieged the Trump administration, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan ventured into the heavily Democratic Ocean State for a brief visit.

Ryan, R-Wis., came and went on Thursday without addressing a boisterous crowd of several hundred protesters who chanted in the cold for hours outside 40 Fountain St., where he visited "Year Up," a youth mentoring and training organization.

The demonstrators yelled "Coward! Coward!" and "This is what Democracy looks like!" and "You can run but you can't hide — you work for us!" when Ryan arrived at around 4:25 p.m., and went inside the building without public comment.

Zack Roday, spokesman for Ryan's political operation, Team Ryan, said the congressman "toured Year Up's facility and heard success stories from current students before taking questions."

Of the protest rally outside, Roday said: "It is unfortunate protesters chose to demonstrate at Year Up — a great organization that works to support young adults so they can experience economic success and stability."

Year Up is chaired nationally by a deep-pocketed political donor: Paul J. Salem, co-founder and senior managing director of Providence Equity Partners. Salem, of Barrington, has contributed tens of thousands of dollars in recent years to political causes and office-holders on both sides of the partisan divide, from 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat.

Ryan spent about an hour downtown. Young adults in the program — which has been a recipient of thousands of dollars from the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies — told a Providence Journal reporter that they were instructed not to talk about the speaker's visit.

Ryan's itinerary was not disclosed beyond the Year Up visit, but the Journal learned that he met with state GOP Chairman Brandon Bell and the party's new finance chairman, Anthony Bucci, at the Hope Club in Providence. He also met with executives from CVS Health.

"Meeting with public officials is a usual and important part of our work to fulfill our company’s purpose of helping people on their path to better health," said CVS spokeswoman Carolyn Castel. "We always appreciate the opportunity to engage with elected leaders across the political spectrum in a dialogue about how various public policy proposals would affect our company and our customers."

The House speaker arrived less than 24 hours after it emerged that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had spoken with Russia's ambassador to Washington while involved with President Donald Trump's election campaign. The protesters at Thursday's rally in Providence made it clear, both verbally and on the signs they carried, that they want Sessions to leave office.

David Small, of Coventry, said he was protesting "to resist Paul Ryan's agenda and to resist Jeff Sessions' agenda." He added, "As a matter of fact, I think the election probably was illegal and should be thrown out by the Supreme Court, due to interference by foreign powers."

The rally, organized by Rhode Island Working Families and Resist Hate RI, also included a "Paul Ryan, Phone Home" event, where callers in the crowd FaceTimed with constituents in Ryan's home state. Rally participants shouted out the Wisconsinites' comments over a bullhorn.

Ryan's home-state constituents want him to attend a Town Hall meeting there. Ryan has declined to do so, so hundreds of Kenosha, Wisconsin, residents held a town hall meeting without him Sunday and directed their remarks to an empty chair, according to media reports.

Georgia Hollister Isman, state director of Rhode Island Working Families, said at the rally, "We're here to tell Speaker Ryan his values are not Rhode Island values: we're here in solidarity with our friends in Wisconsin."

Glancing at her smart phone, Hollister Isman added, "We have almost 50,000 people watching this on Facebook Live, because everybody wants to send a message to Speaker Ryan."

Amy Pickworth, of Providence, who works at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, said she is upset "over what the Trump agenda is doing to dismantle health care, the arts — all of the good things that we stand for. They're turning away refugees ... I'm ashamed of my country right now. And I'm really mad at Paul Ryan."

There were first-time protesters and others whose last political protests date to the Vietnam War. Some parents brought their sons and daughters. Dotting the crowd were the pink hats that debuted at the Women's March on Washington on Jan. 21, the day after Trump's inauguration.

State Rep. Robert Nardolillo, a Coventry Republican gearing up for a probable run for the U.S. Senate, denounced the "progressive Democrats" leading the protest, who he said "did everything they could to destroy Rhode Island's chances of fostering productive relations with the White House."

He added, "Our state, which has been suffering for many years, is in desperate need of critical federal funding, and today's protest did nothing to help our flailing economy.''

With reports from staff writers Carol Kozma, Amanda Milkovits and Donita Naylor.