I asked him what the matter was.

Generally when asked in the present tense, such a question is an inquiry into the person's perceived problem, toward offering helpful advice.

Thanks, 33export.

But what is the option, the first or the second?

If that is the speech as it was spoken (the quote marks state that), the reported speech would be "I asked him what the matter had been". or "I asked him what had been the matter".

I see an ignorant coward has been here:



We sometimes change the tense of the reported clause by moving it back one tense. For example, present simple goes back one tense to past simple. We call this change "backshift". We use this when it is logical to do so. For example, if two minutes ago John said "I am hungry" and I am now telling his sister, I might NOT use backshift (because John is still hungry): John just said that he is hungry. But if yesterday John said "I am hungry" and I am now telling his sister, I would likely use backshift: Yesterday, John said that he was hungry.

So we use backshift sometimes but not always. And when we use it, here's how it works with these common tenses and modals:

present simple → past simple
present continuous → past continuous
past simple → past perfect
present perfect, past continuous → past perfect continuous
can → could
may → might
will → would
shall → should

We never use backshift when the original words are:past perfect; could; might; would; should. If a situation is still true, backshift is optional. For a general truth there is no need for it.

Thanks, centrox, for explaining in detail the backshift in tenses in reported speech.