A delegate takes a selfie in front of a banner in support of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the opening day of the Republican National Convention. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

Paul Ryan is from Venus. Donald Trump is from Mars.

As Republicans gathered here on Monday, it sounded as though the highest-ranking elected official in their party and the man it is about to nominate for president were planning two different conventions.

The one that Trump’s campaign described will be a display of bare knuckles and big messages, with little by way of concrete substance.

“The American people are not looking for a 10-point plan right now. They just want to believe in somebody who will mean it when they say, ‘I’m going to change things and fix it,’ ” Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort told reporters at a breakfast hosted here by Bloomberg News.

“So the traditional campaign of, here’s our platform, the contract with America or whatever, doesn’t have weight like it did in the past,” Manafort added. “We’ll have that kind of document for purposes of clarity, because some people want it. But that’s not what’s going to move the election. It’s going to be: Who is going to change the country? And can that person be president?

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) reiterated that he would support presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on June 23, saying it's his responsibility as a Republican leader. (Reuters)

“And that’s our campaign.”

[Republican convention: Brief chaos as anti-Trump delegates are rebuffed]

A few hours later and a few downtown blocks away, many of those same reporters were gathered at a lunch with Ryan put on by the Wall Street Journal. By virtue of being the speaker, the congressman from Wisconsin is also chairman of the convention — although he and Manafort were nowhere near the same page on it.

Ryan had initially declined to endorse Trump, and it is clear that more than a little awkwardness lingers.

What Americans want to hear from Republicans this week, Ryan said, are specific plans for fixing the nation’s problems.

The point of the convention — and the campaign -- is taking the party’s conservative foundation and “trying to give it some substance and direction so that, come November, we stand for something,” Ryan added.

That is something of a challenge, however, given how many of the pillars of Republican orthodoxy Trump has rejected. He is skeptical of multilateral trade agreements, wants to see entitlement programs such as Social Security preserved in their entirety, and has called President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq a mistake.

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“He’s not my kind of conservative,” Ryan conceded, in something of an understatement.

And then there was the question of tone.

The hallmark of Trump’s campaign has been a disdain for anything that smacks of “political correctness” — which his critics have said is an excuse to express bigotry, sexism and intolerance.

Manafort said Trump will take a tough tone on one of the major themes of this convention, which is that the nation’s cities have descended into lawlessness — something that has new resonance with the shooting of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

But he rejected any suggestion that this message must be tempered with a call for inclusiveness or efforts to bridge the divide between African American communities and law enforcement.

“What Trump is saying is the truth. And that’s being called divisive. He’s saying that the city’s a mess,” Manafort said. “And yes, that’s a harsh message. But trying to paper over it, he wouldn’t be the nominee if he tried to talk the happy talk about the situation. Talk the regular Washington babble. He wouldn’t be the nominee.”

“In truth-telling, unfortunately, from one standpoint, it looks like he’s divisive,” he acknowledged.

[In Trump’s GOP, Jeff Sessions rockets from the fringe to prime time]

Ryan, on the other hand, said that he worries about “identity politics bubbling up on the right. That’s wrong and it’s bad and we should reject it.”

“I hope people don’t conclude that’s the way to win elections,” Ryan added.