Someday I'd like to acquire the goods necessary for making pens, but I
have not been able to find a basic enough description of each step, and
piece of equipment necessary.

The part about inserts, and rams, and mechanics gets lost a bit.

It seems the order is:

get a pen blank (the square piece of wood)
drill through with a vertical vise to hold the blank in the drill
press.

Now I don't know many drill presses with enough vertical travel to make
it in one pass, so I assume you have to adjust the table up with the
bit in the piece to keep it on-line.

Then I don't know what you do...

Glue some brass tube in?

Put it on a manderal in a vise?

Thanks
Alan