Need a pointer with RAGI and asterisk

Hello there all.

i just got started with ruby. i got the pickaxe book from amazon
yesterday.
The main reason i got into ruby was for RAGI ( the asterisk api ). From
the tutorials,
there is a lot of emphesis on using it with Rails. I was wondering if
it is possible to use Ragi without having to set up rails ? We have a
small IVR server, and that is the computers sole purpose. Does anyone
have any experience with doing this ?
thanks