WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday accused new House Speaker Paul Ryan of “pandering to the extreme right wing” of his party on immigration.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Ryan’s recent comments on an immigration overhaul are “preposterous” and disappointing.

The Wisconsin Republican said Sunday that he’s ruled out passing comprehensive immigration legislation while President Barack Obama is in office. He said Obama cannot be trusted on the issue because he went around Congress to take executive actions shielding from deportation millions of people living in the country illegally.

Earnest called the remark “ironic.” He said it’s Ryan who supported an immigration deal, then failed to push for it to come up for a vote in the House.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign also jumped on Ryan’s remarks.

The comments show “the extreme wing of the Republican caucus still controls the agenda in the House,” Lorella Praeli, the campaign’s Latino outreach director, said in a statement noting Clinton’s support for Obama’s executive actions. “It is clear the stakes in next year’s elections could not be higher.”

The criticism comes as Ryan is maneuvering carefully on the issue of immigration, long a priority for him. With most House conservatives wary of anything that could constitute “amnesty” for the 11.5 million immigrants living here illegally, Ryan has offered repeated assurances, before and after becoming speaker last week, that he will not pursue comprehensive immigration legislation as long as Obama is president.