This example shows how you can define the position where the scripts are injected by setting inject:false and using the template parameters inside the index.ejs

The example is using the template parameters headTags and bodyTags

<%= htmlWebpackPlugin.tags.headTags %>
<%= htmlWebpackPlugin.tags.bodyTags %>

headTags and bodyTags are arrays so you can use any Array.prototype function like filter:

<%= htmlWebpackPlugin
  .tags
  .headTags
  .filter((tag) => tag.tagName === 'meta')
  .join('')
%>

For further information about the tag object take a look at the createHtmlTagObject inside lib/html-tags.js or at the prepareAssetTagGroupForRendering inside index.js.