Samsung Electronics Co., faced with exploding batteries in some of its top-selling phones, exacerbated the situation in the way it communicated with regulators and consumers, say former U.S. officials and people familiar with similar product recalls.

The discovery that batteries on the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone could ignite created a tricky task for Samsung: orchestrate a recall of 2.5 million devices spanning 10 countries for a product that is increasingly essential to daily life.

But...