From my understanding, internally, Vim::get_view() also retrieves from the VM Inventory view list.

Eg: Same code in  PyVmomi to get VM object using vm_moid

# vm_morref: "vm-xx" or "vim.VirtualMachine:vm-xx"

def getVMFromMOR(si, vm_moref):
    vm_obj = None
    view_ref = si.content.viewManager.CreateContainerView(container=si.content.rootFolder,
                                                          type=[pyVmomi.vim.VirtualMachine], recursive=True)
    for managed_object_ref in view_ref.view:
        if vm_moref in str(managed_object_ref):
            vm_obj = managed_object_ref
            break
    return vm_obj