Speaker Paul Ryan Paul RyanTrump to cut pay raises for government workers Trump and Republicans have to make the tax code great again Mnuchin: More tax details coming shortly MORE (R-Wis.) said Tuesday he only learned about President Trump’s executive order barring most travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries as it was being rolled out, and called the confusion with the announcement “regrettable.” 
 
 “I think it’s regrettable that there was some confusion on the rollout with this,” Ryan said at a news conference in the Capitol. “No one wanted to see people with green cards or special immigrant visas like translators get caught up in all of this. 
 
 “Regrettably, the rollout was confusing,” he added. 
 
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 Ryan said, however, that he is confident Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly will properly implement the new immigration program. 
 
 The Speaker said he had a lengthy conversation with Kelly on Monday to make sure permanent residents with green cards and other special segments of the population would not be restricted by the temporary ban. 
 
 Kelly, whose agency is responsible for implementing the travel restrictions, was getting his first White House briefing about it Friday when someone on the call spotted Trump on TV signing the executive order, The New York Times reported. 
 
 GOP leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers have expressed frustration that Trump allies on Capitol Hill were not informed of the executive order until Trump signed it Friday on live television. 
 
 Asked when exactly he heard about it, the Speaker replied: “Pretty much at the time it was being issued. We were briefed on the contents of it as it was being rolled out.” 
 
 In a closed-door GOP conference meeting earlier Tuesday morning, some lawmakers asked whether news reports were true that Judiciary Committee staffers had helped work on Trump’s executive order. 
 
 House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte Bob GoodlatteHouse panel rejects request to probe Arpaio pardon House Dems call for hearing on Trump's Arpaio pardon DOJ stops 'Operation Choke Point,' but only Congress can end it for good MORE (R-Va.) stood up and replied that he had authorized some of his staffers to assist the Trump transition team on issues of immigration law, something The Hill reported Monday night. But the chairman himself did not directly help shape the final product. 
 
 Ryan brushed off a question about whether it was appropriate for Hill staffers to be working on an executive branch order without leadership’s knowledge. 
 
 “Congressional staffers help the administration all the time,” said Ryan, who confirmed that Goodlatte had explained his staffers’ involvement. “We weren’t involved in this.” 
 
 Other GOP sources said leadership is not pleased that Goodlatte failed to inform them his committee staff was working on the executive order. 
 
 But in an interview Tuesday, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) downplayed any friction with the powerful Judiciary chairman. 
 
 “There were a lot of our members helping with the transition, which is commonplace for this kind of administration where members of the same party want to help the new team coming in,” Scalise told The Hill. 
 
 “Ultimately, we don’t have daily conversations with committee chairmen or staff that are part of that transition. I imagine the chairman of that committee knew what his staff were doing.” 

 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees, but said he regretted the confusion caused by its implementation. 
 
 “The president has a responsibility to the security of this country,” Ryan told reporters. “It’s regrettable that there was confusion on the rollout of this. No one wanted to see people with green cards or special immigrant visas, like translators, get caught up in all of this.” 
 
 The Wisconsin Republican said he spoke at length with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and was “confident that he is, on a going forward basis, going to make sure that things are done correctly.” 

 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. 
 
 He stressed that he supported the nation’s refugee resettlement program. 
 
 “We’re a generous country,” he said, citing a “very good conversation” with John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary. “But we can be generous and watch our national security at the same time.”
– Paul Ryan appears to be playing nice with President Trump, at least when it comes to an executive order barring travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries. In comments Tuesday, Ryan said it was "regrettable that there was some confusion on the rollout," noting "no one wanted to see people with green cards or special immigrant visas, like translators, get caught up in all of this." But he also expressed support for the policy for security reasons and said he'd had a "very good conversation" with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, whom he is "confident" will "correctly" implement it, report Reuters and the New York Times. Amid the uproar on the left, many Republicans are joining Ryan in backing the executive order. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are two prominent exceptions, per the Times. However, the Hill reports most Republicans knew little about the order ahead of time, except that it was in the works. Though Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said Tuesday that some of his staffers had been given the go-ahead to assist Trump's transition team in regards to immigration law, Ryan says GOP leaders were only "briefed on the contents of [the order] as it was being rolled out."