Yes, without the system running it should equalize. The idea of using dry nitrogen is that you put in about two oz. of R22, then pressurize with dry nitrogen. You can pressurize to well over 100PSI so that the R22 will be forced out of any leak present.

R22 is much more detectable by an electronic leak detector. The EPA allows up to 2 oz. of R22 to be released to the atmosphere under these conditions. Their thinking is that it is better to have two oz. of R22 in the atmosphere than pounds of 134 or 12 due to the leak.

If you don't use the R22 with the nitrogen and have an electronic leak detector, then the nitrogen is a useless step.

Good luck,