In an email to staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency’s acting director ordered workers to cease “all supervision and examination activity.”

Rohit Chopra, who led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was known for his aggressive enforcement and expansion of consumer protection laws.

Mr. Chopra, long a target of criticism by Republican lawmakers and banks, has not yet been forced out. “I swore an oath to a five-year term,” he said this week.