I am trying to do the same thing with Ocean plugin and BP_buoyantMeshActors.
So far I have tried creating events, recording the actors, nothing seems to be turn on the physics simulation during the movie. The Ocean / Water moves fine but now my goal is to get the floating actors move with the Ocean / Water.
Right now my camera is far away from the actors so its not a big deal but if I want to do a close up I will need to hand animate it.
See example:
Project Tropic
ADD++ I found that I can run the simulation which does run the physics engine, then start the cinematic / connecting the cine camera I get Actors to move with the Water / Ocean, not sure if this will work if I try to export a prerecorded movie, but for now I could move the camera in and get the benefits of the physics based water simulation.