Github Workflow Actions And EC2: Error Loading Key Invalid Format

I am trying to set up CI for my nodejs server. I would like to use github actions to ssh into my ec2 instance, where I can then git clone/pull my updated repo.

I can ssh into my ec2 instance on my local machine w no issues. I just do something like: "ssh -i keypar.pem username@some-ip.region.compute.amazonaws.com" and it connects. However, I can't seem to get a connection working on the worflow/actions script. Here is what I have in my workflow yml file:

name: CI

on: [push]

jobs: build:

runs-on: ubuntu-latest

steps:
- name: Connect
  env:
    DEPLOY_KEY: ${{ secrets.EC2 }}
  run: |
    eval `ssh-agent`
    ssh-add - <<< "${DEPLOY_KEY}"
    ssh ec2-user@ec2-instance-ip-here.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com

This script gets me the error "Error loading key "(stdin)": invalid format". Also when I look at the deploy key section under repo settings, it says the key has never been used.

(Obviously I would need to install, clone, and perform other steps in addition to what is listed above.)

In summary:

1 how to I fix the invalid format error?

2 how do I load and reference the key pair?