If you have an account (which is actually not difficult to get, just a little hidden) it is already possible to move Bit- and other coins through the existing (few) gateways.
Bitstamp.net supports ripple, so if you already have an account there, it's easy (even setting up an account is not hard there). They exchange BTC, USD, EUR and maybe some other currencies.
There's another service (dividendrippler.com) that does import/export without registration and supports LTC and TRC.
However, you should be aware that ripple is in beta, is not fully open source (server side is still closed), and the exchange rate of XRP can vary wildly (through the release of free ripples by the developing company). Don't speculate with ripples! Buying a small amount (just enough to set up some credit lines etc) for experimenting with the system is ok IMO. However, although I think the idea is great and might be a good addition to the cryptocoin infrastructure the system might just fail, essentially making your ripples worthless and any other currency stored in the system difficult to retrieve (actually these currencies are always stored in the gateways, ripple is just a ledger for bookkeeping).
Onkel Paul