Senior members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) have held talks with "peacemakers" experienced in other conflicts.
Their talks follow a pledge to do so last week made by Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), which is politically associated with the UDA. The development is linked to a series of signals from the North's largest paramilitary organisation, which is not deemed to be on ceasefire, that its campaign is finally over and that a political path is being sought.
Mr Gallagher said the international peacemakers had a role to play. "They can safely say the UDA has changed," he said.
"What we are doing now is trying to consolidate that change, create structures where it continues to change, and where that change can be predetermined."
Last week the UPRG published Loyalism in Transition - A New Reality?, a document which reflects the thinking of UDA leaders and the wider loyalist community.
In it, they claimed that loyalists need assistance and understanding as they bid to move beyond conflict.
Mr Gallagher said the research contained in the publication portrayed a community apprehensive and frightened at the speed of developments involving the nationalist community.
He said many working-class Protestants suffered a sense of disempowerment and feared being sold out by their own government.
They were aware the IRA "had moved on to new territory" by ending its campaign and pushing to secure its objective of Irish unity through democratic means.
As a result loyalists "are saying we still need to be able to defend out community, but we cannot defend our communities in the way we used to," Mr Gallagher said. "We have to get educated, we have to work out strategies," he added.