The electromagnetic (EM) features of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) fundamentally determine their operating principles and performance. Motivated by these considerations, we study a single-input single-output (SISO) system in the presence of an RIS, which is characterized by a circuit-based EM-consistent model. Specifically, we model the RIS as a collection of thin wire dipoles controlled by tunable load impedances, and we propose a gradient-based algorithm for calculating the optimal impedances of the scattering elements of the RIS in the presence of mutual coupling. Furthermore, we prove the convergence of the proposed algorithm and derive its computational complexity in terms of number of complex multiplications. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm provides better performance and converges faster than a benchmark algorithm.