Though House leaders had planned to restart stalled committee work, including oversight of the Trump administration’s relief efforts, it was unlikely that the next phase of coronavirus aid would have been ready in time for the House to vote next week. Democrats were still drawing up their proposals on Tuesday, and leaders have said it will most likely include a significant increase in funding for state, local and tribal governments, as well as additional resources for the Postal Service, food assistance programs and election funding.

Senate Republicans have resisted funding most of those items and have said any federal relief package must shield employers from liability for harm to employees and customers when they begin to reopen.

The delay will also give House leaders more time to try to reach a bipartisan agreement on rules changes that would allow remote voting and hearings for the first time in history. Democratic leaders were hoping to build Republican support for their plan to permit lawmakers who could not or did not want to travel to Washington during the pandemic to designate another member to vote by proxy in their stead, and a bipartisan task force working on the issue met again on Tuesday.

Mr. Hoyer indicated that Democrats would move ahead on their own and vote on the rules change when they did return to Washington if those talks did not yield an agreement. Republican leaders have questioned the idea of proxy voting, arguing that it flew in the face of representative government and could deprive rank-and-file lawmakers of input into legislation.

But at least one Republican lawmaker, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, said on Twitter that the abrupt reversal on the House’s schedule only underscored the “URGENT need to reimagine and modernize how Congress can safely continue to do our critical legislative, approps, & oversight work during this crisis.”

In the absence of consensus on how to do so, many Democrats said calling off the session was the right move.

“We should be ensuring proxy voting and remote hearings so that we can engage in that important aspect of business,” Ms. Jayapal said, “but returning without the appropriate safety, testing and distancing protocols and procedures in place is unsafe and counterproductive.”