West Ham had won all five of their previous away Europa Conference League games, scoring 12 goals, conceding only two in keeping four clean sheets.
Moyes’ side were ponderous, at times, during the opening 45 minutes as Jordan Torunarigha and Joseph Okumu headed presentable opportunities wide, but the visitors came alive in the closing stages.
They were unfortunate not to lead when a mistake from Davy Roef resulted in the Gent goalkeeper spilling the ball into his own net.
Roef’s blushes were spared, however, after VAR intervened having seen a handball by Nayef Aguerd during the spillage. It would prove a very short reprieve.
Gent switched off on the stroke of half-time from a throw in. Jarrod Bowen was alert to Vladimir Coufal’s quick-thinking as he latched onto the restart to cross for Ings to tap home.
The goal was subject to another VAR check, this time for offside, but the decision went the way of the Hammers to delight the 1,000 visiting fans squashed into the corner at the opposite end.
On his first European appearance since October 2015, Ings had his maiden strike on the continent.
Fourth in the Belgian first division, Gent reached the quarter-finals by beating Qarabag of Azerbaijan and Turkish side Istanbul Basaksehir in the knockout rounds.
Last season the Hammers melted in the cauldron of Eintracht Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Park, crashing out in the semi-final of the Europa League. Here, they showed maturity to absorb Gent’s expected second-half response.
AZ Alkmaar or Anderlecht await the winners of this tie – and the second half was blown wide open when the hosts levelled just 11 minutes after the restart.
West Ham were sloppy and caught ball-watching as Castro-Montes strolled forward and found Cuypers, who had time to steady himself and blast in his sixth goal in his last five games and 25th in all competitions this season.
The momentum was with Gent, who might have completed the turnaround when Castro-Montes dragged his shot wide midway through the second period.
The lively Orban, who scored the fastest hat-trick in European competition at Istanbul Basaksehir in the last round – timed at just three minutes and 25 seconds – sliced another attempt off target.
Paqueta was summoned by Moyes from the bench and the Brazilian showed superb vision to spot the diagonal run of Bowen, whose shot was miscued.
There was still time for Orban to produce a brilliant piece of improvisation in the final 10 minutes as he looked to catch Areola off his line with an overhead kick which looped onto the top of the bar – but West Ham survived with a valiant draw despite the late drama involving Piatkowski.
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