Distress signal ring is only mediocre (2-2)
I believe the answer is:
so-so
'mediocre' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'distress signal ring is only' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'signal' could be 'sos' (SOS is an example) and 'sos' is present in the answer.
'ring' could be 'o' (letter resembling a ring) and 'o' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for so-so that I've seen before include "OK, but nothing special" , "Informally, only moderately good or well" , "Nothing to write home about" , "Neither good nor bad" , "Rather middling" .)