PHP WDSL Error on new server

I'm loading existing PHP code onto a new server and getting a fatal error with a soap wsdl:  

$this->client = new SoapClient(
      "https://servername.jws?WSDL",
      array("classmap" => $this->classmap,
      "location" => "https://servername.jws",
      "trace" => true,
      "exceptions" => true
      )
);

PHP Fatal error:  SOAP-ERROR: Parsing WSDL: Couldn't load from 'https://servername.jws?WSDL' failed to load external entity 'https://servername.jws?WSDL'

If I test the wsdl in a test page:
$wsdl = "https://servername.jws?WSDL";
echo file_get_contents($wsdl);

I get an ssl error:
Warning: file_get_contents(): SSL operation failed with code 1. OpenSSL Error messages: error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed

A co-worker suggested this:
$arrContextOptions=array
(
    "ssl"=>array
                (
        "verify_peer"=>false,
        "verify_peer_name"=>false,
    ),
);

This works for the test scenario, but I have no idea how to incorporate it into the soap client???
Or is there another avenue to resolve the issue???
Any help would be appreciated!