Ryan said last night that he hopes to be able to support Trump, but isn’t there yet. He noted that policy disagreements are inevitable–saying that he had even had some with Mitt Romney when he ran on his ticket in 2012–and said that he did not expect Trump to reverse his policy positions. He said what he wanted: “ I’d love to see our standard-bearer celebrate the principles of our party, apply them to the problems. appeal to all Americans and run a principled, solutions-based campaign that we can all be proud of.” Those principles, he said, included support for the Constitution, limited government, and the “right role” for a president.
Trump could have responded by saying that he would continue to roll out solutions that will help all Americans, that he shares Ryan’s intention to unify Republicans, and that nobody is more committed to the Constitution than he is. He didn’t do any of that, instead criticizing Ryan.
Ryan does not have a great deal of leverage here, which is probably why his demands were so limited and why Trump feels it possible to attack him. As the chairman of the convention and the Speaker of the House, Ryan pretty much has to endorse Trump eventually. But in the interim he has signaled to anti-Trump Republicans that there is still a place for them in the party, and to congressional Republicans that they can refrain from supporting Trump. Trump’s response to him, meanwhile, has made it a little bit easier for Ryan to delay his endorsement and maybe even to forego it altogether.
Ryan's Non-Endorsement of Trump