Gov. Kathy Hochul was buzzing as she laid out the details of a two-day nautical extravaganza marking America’s 250th birthday. There would be more than 30 ships, 200 planes and perhaps millions of spectators along the New York City coast, soon to be joined by 20,000 sailors.

She took care to recognize a familiar face, the City Council speaker, Julie Menin. Then, as the governor scanned the room on Sunday, she asked a rhetorical, but pointed question: “Are any other elected officials here?”

If Ms. Hochul was awaiting an answer from the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, it would not be forthcoming. The mayor declined an invitation to attend the news conference, according to a person involved in the planning who was not authorized to speak publicly.

A decade ago, New York City was tapped by Congress as one of several priority cities marking the country’s 250th birthday. Organizers with America250, the group overseeing the celebrations, say they have been in frequent contact with those cities’ mayors and their teams to coordinate plans and events.

But Mr. Mamdani has been less of a presence than some of his mayoral peers, in part because of his complicated relationship with rah-rah, unquestioningly festive displays of patriotism.

With President Trump in the White House and tens of thousands of immigrants being detained as part of the federal government’s crackdown, New York’s mayor is choosing to mark the country’s 250th anniversary in his own way.

Mr. Mamdani will give a speech on Friday, seated in City Hall behind George Washington’s desk, for an audience of recently naturalized immigrants. He will reflect on his own views about the nature of the nation’s principles, whom its liberties include and when the country falls short of the values preached in its founding documents.

The New York Times recently asked the mayor about his views of the holiday, which he indicated had evolved to encompass a mix of criticism and pride, a perspective shared by many other Americans.

“Anniversaries of this scale are not just invitations to reflect on the past,” Mr. Mamdani said in a written response. “They are also a mirror.”

Mr. Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and moved to Manhattan at age 7, recalled that, growing up, his early memories of the Fourth of July were of barbecues, watching fireworks and “appreciating Juelz Santana’s incredible suit” — a reference to the American flag designs worn by the New York rapper who was popular in the early 2000s.

As he grew older, he said, he came to feel that the patriotism associated with the holiday was complex, capacious and raised many questions.

“I remember many a college dorm room poster describing patriotism in the language of ‘love it or leave it,’ but patriotism is not pretending our country has no flaws,” said Mr. Mamdani, who graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine. “It is loving our country enough to fight for the fulfillment of its ideals. The freedoms we enjoy were not handed down; they were won. And we have many more to win.”

Mr. Mamdani has often seemed most comfortable expressing a sort of New York City-focused patriotism, one in which the city — scrappy, diverse, openhearted — serves almost as a foil to the mighty country at large. His fiery Knicks victory speech captured New York as a place where underdogs triumph and the broke somehow make rent. As the World Cup games began in New York, he eschewed a Team USA shirt for a custom New York City jersey, complete with a pigeon icon.

And on July 4 last year, Mr. Mamdani nodded to the complexities of the country’s history and its present state, writing on social media, “America is beautiful, contradictory, unfinished.”

In some ways, the mayor is reflecting a popular view among Americans. A Pew Research Center poll in January found that 69 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with how things are going in the country.

But there’s an apparent disconnect between the city’s role in the country’s 250th anniversary and the mayor’s limited involvement. His absence from the news conference for Sail4th 250 — the nonprofit organization planning the maritime weekend events — was particularly noticeable during a weekend when he was visible practically everywhere else, including splashing around in a pool in East Harlem and waving a rainbow flag at the Pride March.

Though Mr. Mamdani has positioned himself as the everything-everywhere-all-at-once mayor, it’s often easy to discern where he wants to be, and what he’s genuinely excited to talk about. For the World Cup tournament, for example, the mayor does a radio-type show to broadcast traffic and weather before a scheduled game day in New Jersey.

While Mr. Mamdani didn’t have a heavy hand in planning for the Sail4th 250 extravaganza, for which $2 million was allocated in this year’s state budget, both City Hall and Sail4th 250 were quick to note the ambitious event couldn’t be pulled off without the involvement of city agencies: strategy sessions at 1 Police Plaza, meetings with emergency management, advertising from the city’s tourism agency.

“Our interaction with the city is really focused on public safety, security and general logistics,” said Chris O’Brien, president of Sail4th 250.

Other factors may be disincentives to Mr. Mamdani’s participation. The event organization’s largest benefactor is the billionaire Ken Griffin, who has been feuding with the mayor since Mr. Mamdani filmed a video about taxing the rich outside his pied-à-terre. And during the tall ships parade on July 4, Vice President JD Vance will join the acting secretary of the Navy and deliver remarks aboard a ship in New York Harbor.

Any potential awkwardness aside, New York will be brimming with events marking the country’s birthday, from the tall ship spectacular to a City Council-hosted poetry reading and a business community event at the New York Stock Exchange. Mr. Mamdani also announced a lottery for free tickets to prime viewing areas to watch fireworks over the water.

“We have been thrilled with our plan in each of our cities and partnership with them,” said Rosie Rios, the president for America250, the bipartisan organization charged by Congress with leading planning of anniversary events across the country.

Other cities have been more involved. The city of Philadelphia has allocated nearly $120 million in this year’s budget to celebrations marking the 250th and lifted curfews on bars and restaurants so people could party later into the night for the patriotic holiday and for the World Cup. (New York State did the same for the World Cup.)

In New York, which has its own rich Revolutionary-era history, planning for the festivities has been bumpier. Months ago, Mayor Mamdani’s team was pitched on the idea of hosting a large public Times Square ball drop during the July 4 weekend. This plan was scrapped because of concerns about security and logistics. Instead there will be a private event live-streamed in which eight balls are dropped to mark America’s various time zones.

“Regardless of where City Hall’s priorities have been, it won’t change the fact that New York City was at the center of this country’s founding and will be at the center of the celebration,” said Steven Fulop, head of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group.

Even as a child, Mr. Mamdani was taught to be skeptical of nationalism and to question who is included in America’s liberties. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, a leading scholar of post-colonialism, reflected in an interview on his own thinking about the Fourth of July and celebrations of American ideals.

“It’s a work in progress — it’s not a finished work which you can look back and celebrate and say ‘Hey, look how well we did,’” he said.

“The vast majority of the population was not the beneficiary of the War of Independence,” Mahmood Mamdani said. “They got rid of the British, yes, that’s a good thing. But with my African upbringing I am no stranger to independence struggles which leave the majority behind.”

To some of the progressive New Yorkers who helped elect Mr. Mamdani’s to City Hall, the approach that Mr. Mamdani is taking to the 250th fanfare feels right.

Beth Baltimore, a political activist and an immigration lawyer, spends her days at 26 Federal Plaza, where last year the federal government was detaining people, and where the courtrooms are now so packed that observers can’t come in.

“It’s really hard to be celebrating 250 years of the United States,” Ms. Baltimore said. “I don’t think you can just celebrate.”