Paul Ryan is scheduled to be the chair at the RNC Convention this July in Cleveland – a convention that will almost certainly see the nomination of Donald Trump. Given the furor over Ryan’s remarks in which he said that he was not able to support Donald Trump – at least not yet – Ryan is apparently offering to step down from that role.

.@SpeakerRyan on whether he’d step down as convention chair if Trump asks: I’ll do whatever he asks me to do @MSpicuzzaMJS @journalsentinel

— Christian Schneider (@Schneider_CM) May 9, 2016

Ryan is making it clear with this and other statements that he is not going to attempt to scuttle Trump’s nomination in any way, and will furthermore not be supporting any third party candidates:  

.@SpeakerRyan tells me he’s steadfastly opposed to a third party candidate, even if it’s Mitt Romney.

— Christian Schneider (@Schneider_CM) May 9, 2016

Ryan is clearly trying to do a bit of fence straddling here. He’s indicating in every way possible that his (at least provisional) opposition to Trump is not intended to be a statement on his position as head of the House GOP or any official capacity within the party, but merely is personal to him. He’s not out to embarrass Trump at the moment of his nomination.

I suspect that Trump will probably not ask Ryan to step down unless he absolutely has to. For all his rhetoric about how he doesn’t need the GOP to be unified, Trump desperately needs as many GOP luminaries on stage as he can wrangle up, especially in light of the fact that Bob Dole will be the only prior GOP nominee who will even attend the convention. Trump really (I suspect) does not want the convention to consist entirely of his own toadies and will try to mend fences with Ryan if he can, and will keep attempting to do that all the way through the date of the convention itself.