Rep. Tim Ryan: We're going to continue to fight

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," January 3, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: All right, just a short time ago, Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio having his picture taken with another Ryan, Speaker Paul Ryan. No relation. Of course, he's a Republican. He's speaker of the House.

Tim Ryan garnered 63 votes in challenging Nancy Pelosi for the Democratic leadership position. He failed. But no one amassed as many votes challenging her like since she's been in control of that party in that body.

Tim Ryan joins me right now.

Congressman, very good to have you. Happy new year.

REP. TIM RYAN, D-OHIO: Happy new year, Neil.

CAVUTO: I noticed today, Congressman, that there were challenges to Nancy Pelosi in the vote. I think it was four votes for Speaker Ryan, but not for her. She still maintained her position as the Democratic leader. But what was that all about?

RYAN: Well, I think there's still some consternation out there about our messaging and what is best moving forward.

But clearly she won almost all of the Democratic votes here today on the House floor. And she's going to be our leader. I certainly spoke up about my concerns about that and the direction of the party. And I lost this battle, but we're going to continue the fight.

CAVUTO: All right, I misspoke there. Two of the votes went to Tim Ryan, to you, not to Paul Ryan. But I got that name stuck in my head.

(LAUGHTER)

RYAN: I will take the extra two.

CAVUTO: But let me ask you. You have been urging the party, that is the Democratic Party, to heed the lessons of this election.

But again and again, what I hear from higher-ups of the party, they blame the Russians, they blame hacking. They say they won the popular vote. So, who really cares? Donald Trump was just sort of like a unique phenomenon.  Has nothing to do with them. What do you say to all of that?

RYAN: Well, I come out of the sports world. I played a lot of sports.  Coached some a little bit when I was younger.

And I think when you lose, you lose. You have got to go back and watch the game film and figure out what to do next. And, yes, there were a lot of different things that happened in this election that affected the election.

But the rebuilding process can't stop -- or start with making excuses. It needs to start with, what did we do wrong and what can we do better? And I think the quicker we get down to the point of what we did wrong, and what we can do better, the better off we're going to be.

And we didn't have a economic message. We have a message that appeals to just a certain sliver of a human being, as opposed to the robust economic interests that everybody had. We had campaigns for women, campaigns for LGBTQ, campaigns for black, white, brown, gay, straight, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish.

We talked to all of those different segments in just that way, not thinking that, well, if you're Catholic, you want a job. If you're gay, you want a job. If you're brown, you want a job. And we have got to talk about raising wages, getting investment back into the United States, and creating opportunity for average people in places like Youngstown, Ohio.

And until we hit that chord over and over and over again, we're never going to be able to compete. We're not a real party now in the country. We're a coastal party, where the majority of our votes come from the coasts. And we got wiped out in the Industrial Midwest. And we will never be a majority party if we continue down that road.

And that's why I'm fighting as hard as I can to change it.

CAVUTO: All right, Congressman Ryan, thank you very, very much. Good catching up with you. Happy new year again.

RYAN: Thanks, Neil.

CAVUTO: All right.

RYAN: Happy New Year.

CAVUTO: All right, Congressman Tim Ryan. Got to get that right. There's a lot of Ryans there. All right.

Content and Programming Copyright 2017 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2017 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.