When the Kingdom of Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940, Arisio was in command of the III Corps deployed on the Alpine front on the border with France, on the Alta Roja-Gessi sector, operating within the 1st Army of General Pietro Pintor during the brief offensive against France in June 1940. In November 1940, after the start of the Greco-Italian War, the Third Corps was transferred to the Albanian front, operating within the 9th Army of General Mario Vercellino (later replaced by General Alessandro Pirzio Biroli), where it fought until May 1941. In the course of the operations against Greece, Arisio went so far as to request that three Blackshirt battalions were repatriated, as they showed no fighting spirit. For his role in the final part of the campaign, he was awarded a Silver Medal of Military Valour. On 1 July 1941 he was promoted to Lieutenant General, assuming command of the XII Corps with headquarters in Palermo.