Steering column gets hot.

I'll poke my best guess in here,,, the ignition switch is failing. These switches have quite substantial contacts inside and have a Bakelite back on a pot metal housing. A heck of a lot of heat can be generated here without offering smoke or odor. The first thing I would look at is the white plastic harness connector for/from this switch. It's under the dash. The failure is more often there but can be in the switch or even both places.
And by the way, in the case of a 90 Geo I had, the key was getting pretty warm before that switch failed completely.
I have no idea how this relates to power steering fluid pressure.