Hi @gleenk it looks like you’ll have to retrieve the WP_Post IDs first and next perform an WP_Query or get_posts to order this stuff properly.
Have a look at the following post “Order Post Objects by menu_order”. The Post Object and the Relationship field both return an array of WP_Post objects, so this solution should be possible for you to use.
In your $args you’ll use the following to order by title 'orderby' => 'title'
Please let me know if this works for you…