Trouble with testing menu with android:showAsAction using espresso

Question

In my test case there is a place where in the sort button could be on the menu overflow or outside as I have used

android:showAsAction=ifRoom

I test it on normal sized devices with onView(withId(R.id.sort)).perform(click()); but it fails on smaller screen devices. I read about

openActionBarOverflowOrOptionsMenu(getInstrumentation().getTargetContext());

on [1] [2] but that fails as well.