The M1911 and P-08 are both recoil operated. The cartridge can't be ejected until the bullet exits the barrel and the gas pressure drops. Both pistols delay the extraction by allowing the barrel to travel backwards for a short ways. A rifle, with a longer barrel and much higher chamber pressures, make that harder to do. That has been done (M1941 Johnson Rifle), but the moving barrel has a bad effect on accuracy (and mounting a bayonet causes more problems). Most semi-auto rifles use some sort of gas operation, using the gas pressure at the muzzle to propel the bolt back. So for a long time after the pistols came out, manufactures struggled to solve the problem in a rifle form.

The French army deployed the Fusil Automatique Modèle 1917 late in WWI, but it was not well-liked and tended to frequently foul the gas port.

Semi-auto rifles really weren't developed with enough reliability for combat use until the M1 Garand, MAS-36, and SVT-40 in WWII. In fact, almost all the armies in WWII used variations of their WWI rifles as their standard rifle (SMLE, Mosin–Nagant, Arisaka, and the Karabiner 98k being a development of the Gewehr 98), as they were already in service, and easier to produce. Only the US made semi-auto rifles standard across most of the army.