Ryan responded that the country was going in the wrong direction, reminding Biden that the unemployment rate of his own hometown had grown to 10% from 8.5% since Obama took office.
But the growing gap between the positive rhetoric underpinning the Paralympics and the day to day experience of thousands of disabled people in Britain raises big questions. Isn't it a betrayal of every Olympic ideal?
More to the point, isn't it a betrayal of the rights and needs of all disabled people, old and young, in a civilised society?
Disabled people are far too important for the Paralympics to be used as a fig leaf to hide the oppression and discrimination they seem increasingly to face. Ultimately this can only bring the games into disrepute
We must also recognise the wider complicity many of us have in disability policies. The government would hardly be pursuing them, against a significant minority, unless it calculated it had public opinion on its side – opinion prepared to go along with the view that in hard times, disabled people should no longer expect so much and need to tighten their belts too.
The Paralympics show just what disabled people are capable of, with support and when they are valued. Cuts in disability benefits, social care and mainstream services, meanwhile, are likely to make it impossible for other disabled people to come close to their potential.
But let's not hold our breath.
There is little chance of a similar protest against disability discrimination by medal winners at the London Paralympic Games. But for many disabled people such a high-profile protest would be timely, in the face of a tidal wave of prejudice and discrimination against disabled people.