WASHINGTON, Nov. 26—The State. Department said to day that an appeal to the United Nations Security Council was only one of several methods that might be adopted by the United States in an effort to halt hostilities between Indian and Pakistani forces.

Charles W. Bray 3d, the State Department spokesman who made the statement, appeared to be retreating slightly from comments made at the Western White House yesterday by Ronald L. Ziegler, the White House press secretary.

Mr. Ziegler told newsmen in response to questions that the possibility of taking the Indian Pakistani dispute to the Security Council was “under consideration” by the Nixon Administration.

“An appeal to the U.N. is only one of many alternatives open.”

Mr. Bray also “categorically” denied a report in The New York Times Thursday that President Nixon was weighing a personal appeal to President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan of Pakistan to free from imprisonment Sheik Mujibur Rahman, leader of the banned Awami League. The Awami League spearheaded the movement for autonomy, and later independence, for East Pakistan.

Qualified sources reiterated, nonetheless, that an appeal to President Yahya had been actively discussed recently be tween senior officials of the Nixon Administration and United Nations personnel.

Mr. Bray further denied suggestions made in a letter to The New York Times and published Nov. 3 in which Benjamin H. Oehlert Jr., former United States Ambassador to Pakistan, asserted that the United States is bound by a long standing bilateral agreement to aid Pakistan with men and arms in case of attack on her by any other country.

“There are no secret commitments binding the U. S. with respect to Pakistan, as former Ambassador Oehlert suggested in his letter to The New York Times,” Mr. Bray said.