WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, in his first series of interviews since his election on Thursday, blamed a policy vacuum for causing months of Republican infighting on Capitol Hill.

“We fight over tactics because we don’t have a vision,” Ryan, R-Wis., said on “Fox News Sunday” in the first five interviews to be broadcast on morning news programs. “We’ve been too timid on policy; we’ve been too timid on vision – we have none.”

Ryan told Fox and other networks that he would put forth a more robust Republican agenda that would serve as a blueprint for Republican candidates going into the 2016 presidential and congressional elections.

“We have to have a vision and offer an alternative to this country so that they can see that if we get the chance to lead, if we get the presidency and if we keep Congress, this is what it will look like, this is how we’ll fix the problems working families are facing,” Ryan said on Fox.

In another interview, with CNN’s Dana Bash, Ryan pledged to “go on offense” as speaker: “We’ve been too timid for too long around here.”

Ryan’s election ended a month-long scramble to identify a successor to John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, who left Congress last week after nearly five years as speaker. Ryan, thanks to his chairmanships of the House Budget and Ways and Means committees and his 2012 nomination for vice president, was seen as uniquely positioned to unite a House Republican conference badly divided over how to oppose President Obama on issues as diverse as fiscal policy, regulation and immigration.

Ryan made public Sunday at least one commitment he had made in private settings in recent weeks: not to take up an immigration-reform package while Obama is president.

Ryan has supported comprehensive immigration-reform legislation that would include a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and Boehner had hoped to take up such a bill as recently as last year. But a conservative backlash, seen in the surprise ouster of then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., in a primary election last year, arrested that momentum.

In addressing the immigration issue in recent private meetings, Ryan pledged to obey the “Hastert rule,” bringing to the floor only those bills supported by a majority of Republicans. But Ryan on Sunday opened the door to breaching the rule on other matters.

“There are always exceptions to the rules, and when circumstances dictate, we have to look at all options available. But I believe it’s important going forward that we operate on a consensus basis,” he said on Fox.

Ryan also declined to take up another crucial issue to many conservatives: a push to defund Planned Parenthood in spending legislation that must be passed by early December. Although he said the group “shouldn’t get a red cent from the taxpayer,” he would not commit to including defunding language that would spark a showdown with Obama and congressional Democrats.