Bear in mind this. You usually only set item ordering inside the category parameters. If you want multiple same-level categories to have similar options and you don't wanna repeat yourself to death, simply create a "template" category (an empty one), adjust the parameters there and then have ALL the other same-level categories inherit the options of this category. This way you can control e.g. ordering more precisely. Don't forget that if you have the cache on, this may sometimes confuse you. So when you test things, also remember to momentarily disable the cache. Finally, the menu option of ordering exists only to override the default ordering options set in the category. For example, you may want to retrieve the items of one or more categories in a different way than you already do. See what we do for example in getk2.org/extend/templates. We got 2 menu items for the latest ones and the most popular ones. These are 2 menu items pointing to the same category, however the 2nd one has an ordering override, so we can filter the popular ones instead of just the recent ones.

Trust me on this, K2's ordering is much more logical compared to Joomla's article system.

If the ordering option is the same for this tree of categories (as well as other params), I highly suggest you use your master category as the "category template" and have all others inherit params for the master.

If that's not the case, keep in mind this:
- We first check the ordering in each category
- If the ordering (and other params) is inherited from some other category, we check that category instead.
- Finally, we check if the ordering is being overridden inside a menu item. Keep in mind there are 2 different ordering controls inside the K2 category menu item, one for when linking to a single category and one for linking to multiple categories. Check which control is enabled.

Ordering is very important in huge media portal deployments. Keep in mind K2 has been extensively tested and working for many many years, powering some of the world's top news portals built with Joomla. So, if there was a bug in ordering inheritance, we would probably already know.

Now, in order for us to help you, I need you to explain your structure (be specific) and which ordering you want to achieve when you're calling the menu items and when you're viewing your K2 categories (if they are not linked via some menu item).

If needed, setup a demo site with K2 only, import the default Joomla sample data to get some articles, and experiment by modifying ordering only.