WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Thursday promised to produce a compromise bill that would protect young undocumented immigrants from deportation as he tries to avoid an internal showdown that threatens to split the GOP and alienate midterm voters.
Republicans huddled privately for two hours without a resolution on a seemingly intractable issue that pits conservative hard-liners aligned with President Trump against moderates frustrated with inaction.
However, Ryan signaled that an effort is still underway to bridge the divide between the warring factions, but it remains to be seen if a compromise is possible. Highlighting the tenuous state of the talks, moderates said Thursday that they had reached an accord with conservatives on a key sticking point, while conservative leaders denied any such deal was in place.
‘‘It’s clear that there are a lot of areas of consensus,’’ said Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin.
At stake is whether the House will act this year to offer protections to ‘‘Dreamers’’ — young undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children and are now at risk for deportation due to President Trump’s cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
A group of renegade GOP moderates has moved with Democrats to try to force votes on immigration legislation later this month in defiance of Republican leaders, who are now scrambling to forge some sort of legislative compromise that could avert an election-year slugfest on the House floor.
Immigration has exposed the divide in the GOP, and leaders have warned that showdown votes five months before the election could cost the GOP its control of the House.
Members left the room Thursday expressing optimism but seeing little evidence of an imminent breakthrough. ‘‘If there was one option that could get both sides together right now we wouldn’t be having this meeting today,’’ said Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois, a moderate Republican.
Several Republicans, including Ryan, said the discussion at the meeting surrounded crafting a bill that would adhere to Trump’s January immigration framework, which called for a path to citizenship but also a wall on the Mexico border and cutbacks to two existing legal immigration pathways.
‘‘Hopefully we can find a path ahead that is consistent with the four pillars that the president laid out,’’ Ryan said.
But plenty remained unsettled. Sticking points include determining how many Dreamers ought to be entitled to a path to citizenship, how far to scale back the existing rules allowing US citizens and legal permanent residents to sponsor family members for immigration, and how to structure any border wall funding.
Other Republicans have also proposed adding other elements to a GOP immigration bill, such as a guest worker program for the agricultural industry.
And the basic question of whether Dreamers ought to have any path to citizenship at all has not been definitively answered by the most conservative House Republicans, who have long opposed any amnesty for illegal immigrants.
‘‘Ultimately, what it comes down to is the citizenship question and how you deal with that,’’ said Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus. ‘‘That has been the thorniest issue from the start and remains still the most difficult issue.’’
Two Republicans familiar with the talks said Freedom Caucus representatives privately floated a new visa program for DACA recipients that would include a potential path to citizenship. Meadows declined to comment on that claim.
The talks played out as Homeland Security said border agents made 51,912 arrests in May, more than triple the number in May 2017 — indicating Trump’s hard-line policies have not deterred border-crossers.
