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In a statement, Mr. Cox denied any wrongdoing and said it should be up to his constituents to decide “whether or not they vote for someone who is a senior and distinguished professional in his field and who still practices that profession.”

At his appearance on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson defended the ability of lawmakers to work as lawyers, doctors or firefighters, but he added, “The most important thing is those who break the rules must be investigated and should be punished.”

For the prime minister, it was the latest in a web of ethics traps that have ensnared him and his party, from lucrative no-bid contracts for companies during the pandemic to questions about whether a party donor paid to redecorate the prime minister’s Downing Street apartment (Mr. Johnson later picked up the tab himself).

With a 79-seat majority in Parliament, Mr. Johnson’s position is safe for now. But analysts said he risked alienating members of his party with a crisis largely of his own making. It grew out of his government’s misbegotten attempt last week to protect another embattled Conservative lawmaker, Owen Paterson, by pressuring Tory lawmakers to vote in favor of rewriting Parliament’s ethics rules.

When that set off a storm of outrage from the opposition and in the media, the government was forced to backtrack and Mr. Paterson resigned. The spotlight quickly swung to other Conservative lawmakers, a few of whom earn more than $1 million a year from consulting contracts and other business deals.

“The question is all about how this is enforced,” said Bronwen Maddox, director of the Institute for Government, a London research institute. “The present system works if the government does not dismantle it.”