After sshd reload, unable to login using ssh

Issue

• Once sshd service is reloaded, ssh is unable to connect the remote machine for some time
• SSH verbose output shows connection refused with error code 255

# ssh root@host_name -q "service sshd reload"; ssh -v root@host_name "date" ; echo $?
Reloading sshd: [  OK  ]
OpenSSH_5.3p1, OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to host_name [x.x.x.x] port 22.
debug1: connect to address x.x.x.x port 22: Connection refused
ssh: connect to host host_name  port 22: Connection refused
255