Locking mechanism to door actuator

So I replaced the motor in my actuator, works great, but now I'm having trouble getting the door lock portion back into the lock actuator for some reason.

The red highlight is the part that needs to go into the green highlight (reference picture below). Is there any easy way to do this? I have so little room to work with that if fear if I pull to hard it'll break.

 

Nvm, I took a break, came back, and just loosened the lock cylinder enough.

Of all the threads and videos I've seen, no one has had this problem, which makes me think I did something wrong, but somehow it works lol.