NetworkManager reports "Error: Connection activation failed: No suitable device found for this connection." and the network service may enter a failed state

Issue

• When trying to activate a connection with nmcli the following error is seen:

  [root@r75 ~]# nmcli con up ens9
  Error: Connection activation failed: No suitable device found for this connection.
  

• At boot or when the network.service is restarted, systemd logs an error and the service is marked as having failed:

  [root@r75 ~]# systemctl restart network.service
  Job for network.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status network.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
  
  [root@r75 ~]# systemctl -l status network.service
  ● network.service - LSB: Bring up/down networking
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/rc.d/init.d/network; bad; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2018-10-26 05:21:15 EDT; 31s ago
   Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
    Process: 12078 ExecStop=/etc/rc.d/init.d/network stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 12261 ExecStart=/etc/rc.d/init.d/network start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  
  Oct 26 05:21:14 r75.example.com systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Bring up/down networking...
  Oct 26 05:21:14 r75.example.com network[12261]: Bringing up loopback interface:  [  OK  ]
  Oct 26 05:21:14 r75.example.com network[12261]: Bringing up interface ens9:  Error: Connection activation failed: No suitable device found for this connection.
  Oct 26 05:21:14 r75.example.com network[12261]: [FAILED]
  Oct 26 05:21:14 r75.example.com network[12261]: Bringing up interface eth0:  Connection successfully activated (D-Bus active path: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/2)
  Oct 26 05:21:14 r75.example.com network[12261]: [  OK  ]
  Oct 26 05:21:15 r75.example.com systemd[1]: network.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1
  Oct 26 05:21:15 r75.example.com systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: Bring up/down networking.
  Oct 26 05:21:15 r75.example.com systemd[1]: Unit network.service entered failed state.
  Oct 26 05:21:15 r75.example.com systemd[1]: network.service failed.