Stay-at-home mum Janna Ryan is no stranger to Washington power circles

Janna Ryan, thrust onto the national stage when her congressman husband Paul Ryan was named the Republican vice-presidential nominee, strikes an appealing image as a stay-at-home mum raising three young children in Wisconsin.

But the 43-year-old wife has been a Washington operative, hailing from a well-connected family and forging an early professional career as a congressional aide and health-care lobbyist.

Friends say she is able to navigate between different worlds - from small-town Oklahoma and Wellesley College, a private women's college outside Boston she attended, to complex policy debates in Washington.

"She is very comfortable in and around politics. She grew up in a political family, and it comes very naturally to her," said Leslie Belcher, a Washington lobbyist who worked on Capitol Hill with Ryan and was later one of her bridesmaids.

During her first public test, Ryan appeared at ease on Saturday as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney introduced her husband at a tightly orchestrated event in Norfolk, Virginia, with the retired battleship USS Wisconsin as the backdrop. She beamed alongside Mitt Romney's wife, Ann Romney, both polished with blonde hair.

Ryan, whose maiden name was Little, grew up in southern Oklahoma. Both of her parents were lawyers. A town in Oklahoma, Little City, is named after the family.