The lack of a "refresh" option has been a problem with iCloud for years. Back in the iOS 8/9 days, I'd write in Pages on an iPad and then try to open the document on a Mac or the Pages web app. Pages itself was (and is) pretty nice, but iCloud sync was constantly broken. Things didn't appear when I needed them to.
Some designers say that refresh buttons shouldn't exist because the interface should always reflect the current state of reality. They're right, but until the day we get 100% bug-free bidirectional sync with perfect conflict resolution that instantly polls the network whenever it reconnects, refresh buttons are a necessary evil.