Variable Scope Issue in Python

I changed your recursive calls to set the value received back from the recursive calls into ctr. The way you wrote it, you were discarding the values you got back from recursing.

def collatz(num,ctr):
    if(num != 1):
            ctr+=1
            if(num%2==0):
                    ctr=collatz(num/2,ctr)
            else:
                    ctr=collatz(num*3+1,ctr)
    return ctr

test=collatz(9,0)

An example:

def collatz(number):

    if number % 2 == 0:
        print(number // 2)
        return number // 2

    elif number % 2 == 1:
        result = 3 * number + 1
        print(result)
        return result

n = input("Give me a number: ")
while n != 1:
    n = collatz(int(n))

Function parameters in Python are passed by value, not by reference. If you pass a number to a function, the function receives a copy of that number. If the function modifies its parameter, that change will not be visible outside the function:

def foo(y):
   y += 1
   print("y=", y) # prints 11

x = 10
foo(x)
print("x=", x) # Still 10

In your case, the most direct fix is to make ctr into a global variable. Its very ugly because you need to reset the global back to 0 if you want to call the collatz function again but I'm showing this alternative just to show that your logic is correct except for the pass-by-reference bit. (Note that the collatz function doesn't return anything now, the answer is in the global variable).

ctr = 0
def collatz(num):
    global ctr
    if(num != 1):
        ctr+=1
        if(num%2==0):
                collatz(num/2)
        else:
                collatz(num*3+1)

ctr = 0
collatz(9)
print(ctr)

Since Python doesn't have tail-call-optimization, your current recursive code will crash with a stack overflow if the collatz sequence is longer than 1000 steps (this is Pythons default stack limit). You can avoid this problem by using a loop instead of recursion. This also lets use get rid of that troublesome global variable. The final result is a bit more idiomatic Python, in my opinion:

def collats(num):
    ctr = 0
    while num != 1:
        ctr += 1
        if num % 2 == 0:
            num = num/2
         else:
            num = 3*num + 1
    return ctr

print(collatz(9))

If you want to stick with using recursive functions, its usually cleaner to avoid using mutable assignment like you are trying to do. Instead of functions being "subroutines" that modify state, make them into something closer to mathematical functions, which receive a value and return a result that depends only on the inputs. It can be much easier to reason about recursion if you do this. I will leave this as an exercise but the typical "skeleton" of a recursive function is to have an if statement that checks for the base case and the recursive cases:

def collatz(n):
    if n == 1:
        return 0
    else if n % 2 == 0:
        # tip: something involving collatz(n/2)
        return #??? 
    else:
        # tip: something involving collatz(3*n+1)
        return #???