Are you instantiating your prefab before setting the values. If you are storing the _codeTextLabel reference before instantiating then your reference will point to the prefab not the runtime object. I can't see the rest of your code, so I can't say for sure. (I would have asked as a comment, but as I'm new I don't have the reputation to do so)
edit: I did a test to try and recreate your problem. I made the following script and it appears to work as expected. CanvasPrefab is a worldspace canvas with a UnityEngine.UI.Text component attached. (The script is attached on an empty game object in the scene btw)
public class ChangeText : MonoBehaviour
{
public GameObject CanvasPrefab;
private GameObject runtimeCanvas;
public string runtimeText = "something";
private Text textRef;
// Start is called before the first frame update
void Start()
{
runtimeCanvas = GameObject.Instantiate(CanvasPrefab);
textRef = runtimeCanvas.GetComponentInChildren<Text>();
}
// Update is called once per frame
void Update()
{
textRef.text = runtimeText;
}
}