It's also plausible that Ryan is just stating this now so he doesn't look like an opportunist by announcing it the same year he decides to run for a statewide office.
It probably won't help. Susan Combs (Comptroller, R-TX) tried this in 2013 (in reverse: going from pro-choice to pro-life) to make herself more electable in the 2014 Republican lieutenant governor primary. Nobody really seemed to believe her and as it became increasingly obvious that she wasn't very good at her job and had no natural base, she ended up not running anyway.
