On his first presidential visit to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Biden received an unsmiling fist bump from the crown prince before meeting King Salman. Their body language is being parsed amid tensions over the Saudi human rights record.

President Biden used his visit to Israel this week to bolster the blossoming relationship between Israel and a handful of Arab states. But it is Mr. Biden’s own relationship with Saudi Arabia that looms largest over the second part of his four-day trip, and the kingdom’s welcome of him was being closely watched as an indication of how the overall visit might unfold.

As Air Force One landed, just before 6 p.m. local time, the Saudi reception, while led by a senior member of the royal family, was decidedly lacking in pomp. Lining the lilac carpet were a small number of uniformed security officers bearing swords, but even fewer than were dispatched to welcome President Barack Obama when he arrived in the kingdom to a chilly reception in 2016.

Mr. Biden emerged from the plane and made his way down the stairs for his first visit to Saudi Arabia as president, wearing his aviator shades, waving and looking serious. He was greeted by Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and Prince Khalid Al Faisal, a senior member of the royal family who is the governor of Mecca and is close to King Salman.

The president climbed into his limousine just two minutes after disembarking. He was taken directly to meet the king.

Arriving at the al-Salam palace, Mr. Biden was met by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the two exchanged an apparently wordless fist bump before the prince led the president inside. Mr. Biden’s aides had been dreading any image of the president meeting with Prince Mohammed, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, who was deemed responsible for the 2018 murder in Istanbul of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist.

An NBC News reporter, Peter Alexander, shouted “Jamal Khashoggi, will you apologize to his family?” but Prince Mohammed and Mr. Biden ignored the question. Mr. Alexander wrote on Twitter that a Saudi aide then “grabbed my arm tightly.”

The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite channel broadcast images of Mr. Biden being warmly welcomed by King Salman, and shaking his hand. Other images showed Mr. Biden and the king sitting next to each other in armchairs in an ornate room during a meeting, with other U.S. and Saudi officials, including Prince Mohammed, sitting nearby.

Later, Mr. Biden is to hold a “working session” along with his team with Prince Mohammed and various Saudi ministers.

Biden’s arrival in Saudi Arabia was polite but perfunctory compared with the enthusiastic greeting President Donald J. Trump received in 2017 when King Salman welcomed him on the tarmac. Mr. Trump made Saudi Arabia his first overseas destination as president, a sharp break with tradition and a sign of how closely he would align his administration with the Saudis.

Even though Mr. Biden vowed as a candidate to punish Saudi Arabia over Mr. Khashoggi’s murder by making the kingdom a “pariah,” the president decided that it was worth the political cost of traveling there this week to counter Chinese influence, press for additional oil production and encourage closer ties with Israel.

In other cases, recently including Cuba and Venezuela, Mr. Biden has stressed that his administration is making democracy and respect for human rights the paramount consideration for dealing with other nations’ leaders. But on Thursday in Jerusalem, he said he was going to Saudi Arabia in order to promote U.S. interests.

Those include getting the kingdom to pump more oil from its somewhat modest spare capacity.

— David E. Sanger, Peter Baker and Ben Hubbard