  Let $F$ be a non-archimedean local field of characteristic different from 2
and residual characteristic $p$. This paper concerns the $\ell$-modular
representations of a connected reductive group $G$ distinguished by a Galois
involution, with $\ell$ an odd prime different from $p$. We start by proving a
general theorem allowing to lift supercuspidal
$\overline{\mathbb{F}}_{\ell}$-representations of $\mathrm{GL}_n(F)$
distinguished by an arbitrary closed subgroup $H$ to a distinguished
supercuspidal $\overline{\mathbb{Q}}_{\ell}$-representation. Given a quadratic
field extension $E/F$ and an irreducible
$\overline{\mathbb{F}}_{\ell}$-representation $\pi$ of $\mathrm{GL}_n(E)$, we
verify the Jacquet conjecture in the modular setting that if the Langlands
parameter $\phi_\pi$ is irreducible and conjugate-self-dual, then $\pi$ is
either $\mathrm{GL}_n(F)$-distinguished or
$(\mathrm{GL}_n(F),\omega_{E/F})$-distinguished (where $\omega_{E/F}$ is the
quadratic character of $F^\times$ associated to the quadratic field extension
$E/F$ by the local class field theory), but not both, which extends one result
of S\'echerre to the case $p=2$. We give another application of our lifting
theorem for supercuspidal representations distinguished by a unitary
involution, extending one result of Zou to $p=2$.
  After that, we give a complete classification of the
$\mathrm{GL}_2(F)$-distinguished representations of $\mathrm{GL}_2(E)$. Using
this classification we discuss a modular version of the Prasad conjecture for
$\mathrm{PGL}_2$. We show that the "classical" Prasad conjecture fails in the
modular setting. We propose a solution using non-nilpotent Weil-Deligne
representations. Finally, we apply the restriction method of Anandavardhanan
and Prasad to classify the $\mathrm{SL}_2(F)$-distinguished modular
representations of $\mathrm{SL}_2(E)$.
