Congress has charged the Fed with two goals, maintaining price stability and maximizing employment; Republicans are concerned that the Fed’s huge efforts to spur job growth will eventually result in unmanageable inflation.

These concerns were heightened last week by the Fed’s publication for the first time of a formal interpretation of its Congressional mandate. The Fed said that it would seek 2 percent annual inflation and try to limit unemployment as much as possible, and that sometimes one goal would be a priority over the other.

“My interpretation is that the Fed is willing to accept higher levels of inflation than your preferred rate in order to chase your unemployment mandate,” said Mr. Ryan. “Is that not what we should interpret out of this?”

Mr. Bernanke responded that the Fed would “not actively seek” to raise inflation but if inflation and unemployment both rose above its targets, it could choose to reduce inflation more slowly in order to reduce unemployment more quickly.

“We are not seeking higher inflation,” Mr. Bernanke said. “We do not want higher inflation and we’re not tolerating higher inflation.”

But Mr. Ryan pressed on, noting this was not a denial.

“I don’t know how else to interpret this — that the result of this balanced approach is that higher-than-preferred inflation may be tolerated,” he said.

Democrats on the committee rushed to defend Mr. Bernanke, arguing that the Fed should be focused on unemployment because 24 million Americans cannot find full-time work.