There are a few different ways to invoke one or more roles in a playbook.

• roles
• import_playbook
• import_role (this article)
• include_role
• include_tasks
• import_tasks

Let's say you have the following structure.

├── /usr/local
│   ├── main.yml
│   ├── roles
│   │   ├── foo
│   │   ├── ├── tasks
│   │   ├── ├── ├── main.yml
│   │   ├── bar
│   │   ├── ├── tasks
│   │   ├── ├── ├── main.yml

And the foo role creates the /tmp/foo.txt file and the bar role creates the /tmp/bar.txt file.

~]$ cat roles/foo/tasks/main.yml
- ansible.builtin.file:
    path: /tmp/foo.txt
    state: touch

~]$ cat roles/bar/tasks/main.yml
- ansible.builtin.file:
    path: /tmp/bar.txt
    state: touch

Your main.yml playbook could have the following, to import the foo and bar roles. This assumes that the "foo" and "bar" roles are included in one of your roles search directories.

---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - ansible.builtin.import_role:
      name: foo

  - ansible.builtin.import_role:
      name: bar
...

Running the main.yml playbook should return the following.

~]$ ansible-playbook main.yml
PLAY [localhost] 

TASK [Gathering Facts] 
ok: [localhost]

TASK [touch /tmp/foo.txt] 
changed: [localhost]

TASK [touch /tmp/bar.txt] 
changed: [localhost]

PLAY RECAP 
localhost                  : ok=3    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0 

Let's say the foo and bar roles directories contain multiple YAML files.

├── /usr/local
│   ├── main.yml
│   ├── roles
│   │   ├── foo
│   │   ├── ├── tasks
│   │   ├── ├── ├── main.yml
│   │   ├── ├── ├── other.yml
│   │   ├── bar
│   │   ├── ├── tasks
│   │   ├── ├── ├── main.yml
│   │   ├── ├── ├── other.yml

Perhaps main.yml creates /tmp/foo.txt and other.yml deletes /tmp/foo.txt.

~]$ cat roles/foo/tasks/main.yml
- ansible.builtin.file:
    path: /tmp/foo.txt
    state: touch

~]$ cat roles/foo/tasks/other.yml
- ansible.builtin.file:
    path: /tmp/bar.txt
    state: absent

tasks_from can be used to specify the YAML file in the role directory that you want to import.

---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - ansible.builtin.import_role:
      name: foo
      tasks_from: main.yml

  - ansible.builtin.import_role:
      name: foo
      tasks_from: other.yml
...

Running the main.yml playbook should return the following.

Running the main.yml playbook should return the following.

~]$ ansible-playbook main.yml
PLAY [localhost] 

TASK [Gathering Facts] 
ok: [localhost]

TASK [touch /tmp/foo.txt] 
changed: [localhost]

TASK [absent /tmp/foo.txt] 
changed: [localhost]

PLAY RECAP 
localhost                  : ok=3    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

Be aware that you cannot use loops with import_role. For example, like this.

---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - ansible.builtin.import_role:
      name: foo
    with_items:
    - /tmp/hello.txt
    - /tmp/world.txt
...

Running a playbook with import_role and loop should return something like this.

ERROR! You cannot use loops on 'import_role' statements. You should use 'include_role' instead.

As the error suggests, use include_role if you want to loop.

---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - ansible.builtin.include_role:
      name: foo
    with_items:
    - /tmp/hello.txt
    - /tmp/world.txt
...