To help Jack Ryan? I think they smelled his dirty laundry coming. He knew well in advance of the nomination what was in his divorce records, and he knew they would be made public. Early reports before the nomination about his records had to make the National GOP a little wary. He should have "come clean" from the start, and that would have eased a lot of minds.
The national party made it clear Illinois was a write off well before the primary, which is why there were so many self-funded candidates in the race. They reiterated that fact when Ryan embarrassed us all, and the state party had to find a replacement. If they had been prepared to put money in the state we would now be several weeks into the campaign with a home-grown replacement.