UPDATE | House GOP, eager to mend wounds, elects Ryan as new speaker

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans rallied behind Rep. Paul Ryan to elect him the House’s 54th speaker on Thursday as a splintered GOP turned to the youthful but battle-tested lawmaker to mend its self-inflicted wounds and craft a conservative message to woo voters in next year’s elections.

In a slow-moving roll call that mixed politics with pageantry, 236 Republicans called out the Wisconsin Republican’s name as their pick for the top job. That put Ryan second in line to the presidency and atop a chamber that has been awash in tumult ever since defiant conservatives hounded Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, into announcing his resignation from that post last month.

Just nine hard-line conservatives against Ryan, instead backing the little-known Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla. Most of them, including members of the rebellious House Freedom Caucus, backed Ryan, though it was clear that future tensions between them and Ryan could not be discounted.

Watching the vote from the visitors’ gallery was Mitt Romney, the GOP’s unsuccessful 2012 presidential nominee who vaulted Ryan, 45, to national prominence by selecting him as his vice presidential running mate. Also in the audience were Ryan’s wife Janna and their three young children, who gained some attention after Ryan insisted he would take the time-draining speaker’s post only if he could carve out time with his family.

Before the vote, Boehner bade farewell to his colleagues after a quarter-century House career, including the last five as speaker.

“I leave with no regrets, no burdens,” said Boehner in a 10-minute speech. “If anything, I leave the way I started, just a regular guy, humbled by the chance to do a big job.”

Boehner’s valedictory did not lack his trademark tears, and he earned a bipartisan standing ovation before even starting when he pulled out a box of tissues.

Minutes earlier, Ryan’s longtime pastor sought divine guidance as the Wisconsin Republican prepared to step into one of Washington’s most taxing jobs.

“Give us the fortitude to endure when the demands of our office seem overwhelming,” beseeched Monsignor Donn Heiar of Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis., in an opening prayer. “Bless us with prudence when all pathways seem troublesome.”

Ryan planned to ask both parties for a period of healing and to focus on working families, said an aide who described the remarks on condition of anonymity ahead of the lawmaker’s acceptance speech.

“If you have ideas, let’s hear them. A greater clarity between us can lead to a greater charity among us,” Ryan planned to say, said the aide, in what seemed a bid for GOP reconciliation.

Ryan’s ascension was coming as Congress neared completion of a bipartisan accord to avert a jarring federal default next week and likely prevent a December government shutdown by setting spending levels for the next two years.