The New York Times revamped its Washington and political operations on Tuesday, naming Carolyn Ryan senior editor for politics and Elisabeth Bumiller the Washington bureau chief.

Ms. Ryan, who was serving in dual roles overseeing politics and managing the Washington coverage, will now focus solely on the national political campaign, Dean Baquet, The Times’s executive editor, said in a memo to the staff.

The appointments “will enrich our coverage of the most compelling national political campaign in ages and the continuing story of the epic struggle surrounding President Obama’s final months in Washington,” Mr. Baquet said in the memo.

For The Times, the shake-up represents a return to the organization’s traditional division of responsibility. Before late 2013, the roles of Washington bureau chief and politics editor had been separate. But roughly six months after Ms. Ryan was named political editor, Jill Abramson, then the executive editor of The Times, also put her in charge of the bureau.

In his memo, Mr. Baquet said that Ms. Ryan’s appointment was “a testament to the remarkable job she has done running coverage as the campaign evolved into the story of more than 20 candidates, and billions of dollars. The complexity of the race is matched only by the complexity of covering it in the mobile age.”

Ms. Ryan, who will be based in New York, said her role would allow her to experiment with new ways to present stories, particularly online. She said she expected to work closely with the digital, video and graphics teams, which are centered in New York.

Ms. Ryan previously served as the paper’s Metro editor and played a crucial role in The Times’s coverage of the fall of Eliot Spitzer, then the governor of New York, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

As bureau chief, Ms. Bumiller, who was named Washington editor earlier this year, said she would oversee coverage of the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Supreme Court.

Ms. Bumiller said President Obama’s last months in office were unlikely to be quiet, making it particularly important to separate The Times’s political coverage from the rest of its Washington coverage.

“Turns out that Obama is not behaving like a lame duck president, and there’s a huge amount going on at the White House,” she said.

Before taking over as Washington editor, Ms. Bumiller spent many years as a reporter in Washington, with assignments for The Times that included the White House and the Pentagon.

“Nothing makes me happier than placing hugely accomplished journalists in senior roles,” Mr. Baquet said.

He said the two editors would soon make their own announcements about additional reporters and editing changes.