Fuming activists have inched close to Ryan’s property several times as part of protests that have drawn the notice of U.S. Capitol Police. A nearby billboard has portrayed Ryan as soft on terrorism. At one sidewalk standoff, his primary opponent — Paul Nehlen, a 47-year-old businessman with tattooed biceps and a deep affinity for Trump — cast Ryan’s backyard fence as an elitist barricade that protects the speaker while his constituents are exposed to the dangers of illegal immigration.
“You should tear down your wall and show everyone that you will live under the same conditions as they do,” Nehlen declared last month as his backers, in matching navy blue T-shirts, stood in front of Ryan’s bushes. They nodded solemnly as he called Ryan a tool of “corporate masters.”
Perhaps the most unsettling moment came when a group of mothers whose children had been killed by illegal immigrants staked out Ryan’s home while he was inside and tried to confront him with poster-size images of the deceased. Breitbart News, the conservative outlet that has extensively chronicled Nehlen’s bid, wrote that “Ryan and members of his security detail fled from his guarded estate” after he was spotted slamming a door on his porch.
A blurry picture of the departing motorcade was pasted on the website alongside the article, which has drawn thousands of comments, nearly all of them harshly critical of Ryan.
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