House Speaker Paul Ryan excused President Donald Trump's request that then-FBI Director James Comey let up on the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn's connections to Russia, saying the president was inexperienced, not trying to impede an investigation.

"As far as the conversations and all that, I'm not going to speculate on any of this, I would just add that of course there needs to be a degree of independence between the DOJ, FBI and the White House and lines of communications established," Ryan told reporters on Thursday, as Comey's testimony continued across on the other side of Capitol Hill.

"The president's new at this, he's new to government," Ryan continued. "So he probably wasn't steeped in the long running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses. He's new to this."

Comey, in his prepared remarks released Wednesday ahead of the Senate intelligence committee's hearing, said Trump asked him in a White House meeting on Feb. 14 to "let this go" regarding the investigation into Flynn's actions.

"The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, 'He is a good guy and has been through a lot.' He repeated that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President," Comey wrote . "He then said, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.' I replied only that 'he is a good guy.' (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would 'let this go.'"

Comey also confirmed in written testimony that he had told Trump on several occasions that the FBI had not opened an investigation into him personally.

Ryan, on Thursday, said he thought Trump's request was not an attempt to obstruct justice, but rather a reflection of his frustration "because speculation's been allowed to swirl when he was directly told by the FBI director he wasn't under investigation."