I have a “real” cron job that executes wp-cron.php every now or then. I collect the link in to a variable by $link = get_edit_post_link(ID);

It works flawlessly if I am logged in and execute cron manually with wp-cron.php but when it is executed by schedule it wont collect the link and leaves it empty.
Striped down version of code:

foreach($published_posts as $post_to_private){
    $user_data = get_userdata( $post_to_private->post_author);        
    $email = $user_data->user_email;
    $link = get_edit_post_link( $post_to_private->ID);

    $email = WP_Mail::init()
      ->to($email)
        "X-Mailer: PHP/". phpversion(),
        "Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8",
    ])

      ->subject('test')
      ->template(plugin_dir_path( __DIR__ ) .'email-templates/expired-transit-email.php', [

        'link'          => $link,

    ]);


        //for testing of email

        return $email->send();

Any ideas?