I have a BN40 220 volt single speed motor for a second pump. I am trying to wire a cord (J&J mini)that has four wires: green (ground) white (neutral) black and red (hot). My question is:

1) which two wires (excluding the ground) do I connect to the two terminals in the motor?

2) If one of them is the neutral wire (white), does it go to the terminal labelled L1? There is no terminal labelled "COM" or anything like that.

Yes, the white wire is common, it goes to "L1." You'll need to figure out which wire is high speed, which wire is low speed, and wire them appropriately.