Sending a message directly form a Rails app to a Node.js and Socket.io push server

I'm building a client side Browser app that uses a server side json API written in Ruby Rails 3 via AJAX. this all works great, no problems. but I want to push data to the users client when other users do things via the API with out having to have the client constantly be polling the server for new data.

so I set up a Node.js and Socket.IO app to act as a push server. Clients connect tot he Socket.IO server and subscribe to the channels they need to. but question is How can I get the Rails app to send a message to the Node server to be emitted on those channels?

I suppose I could just generate a post request to a special rout on the Node server but is there a better way? and how can I ensure that post request came form my rails app?