The chaos that Mr. Trump has wrought in Washington “was not a focus” of the meeting, Mr. Meadows said. “Any comments would have been minor in scope.”

Mr. Trump’s firing of Sally Q. Yates as acting attorney general after she refused to defend his executive order drew praise. “She was a political hack,” said Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas. “I thought it was terrific.”

Representative Raúl Labrador, Republican of Idaho, said all administrations had “a little bit of chaos” in their first weeks.

“I think they’re learning their lesson,” he said. “I think they’re going to realize that it behooves both parties to actually have a little bit more communication.”

The speaker initially weighed in on the order shortly after Mr. Trump signed it on Friday. “President Trump is right to make sure we are doing everything possible to know exactly who is entering our country,” Mr. Ryan said then.

But as several Republican lawmakers lodged complaints about the execution of the order — and, in rarer cases, the thrust of the order itself — Mr. Ryan largely removed himself from the fray. In a statement over the weekend, his office said the order was “not a religious test and it is not a ban on people of any religion,” rejecting that there was any inconsistency between this position and Mr. Ryan’s criticism of Mr. Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration during the campaign.

At times on Tuesday, Mr. Ryan lurched toward testiness. “We’re not here to debate, we’re here to answer your questions,” he told a reporter who interrupted one of his answers on the order.