I don't know. I just did a Rails backend. Feel like I couldn't have written more than 100 lines of ruby in the whole thing. Not sure its that important.
I don't understand. Why would they need to know Ruby fist? These arent people looking to become devs. They're looking to limp something along until it takes off or dies. There's no need know Ruby for that.
In fact I'd go so far as to say that trying to learn Ruby first is doing yourself a disservice. Just dive right in.