John Shelby Spong, in Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus, page 109, points to the large number of discrepancies between Acts chapter 9 and Paul’s epistles. Because of this, I look at both Acts of the Apostles and Paul's epistles in order to establish the events that took place.
In Galatians 1:12-17, Paul says that no one taught him the gospel, which he received purely by revelation, after which he went immediately to Arabia (Petrea):
Galatians 1:12-17: But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.
Acts omits the trip to Arabia, because the blind and helpless Paul must first be taken to Damascus to have his sight restored. Paul had said that no one taught him the gospel, so Acts merely says that Ananias restored Paul's sight and not that Ananias taught him the gospel, but the time Paul spent with the disciples before he began to preach does allow the reader to assume that he was taught the gospel, if not by Ananias then at least by those disciples.
The author of Acts is at pains to give Peter credit for beginning to preach to the gentiles, with chapter 10 telling of Peter realising he was called to preach to Jews and Gentiles alike, and how he baptised the centurion Cornelius and many others. It is still too early to preach to the gentiles, so Paul is not instructed to do so and, in Acts 9:20, he preaches to the Jews:
Acts 9:20: And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.
The Jews soon attempt to kill Paul and the disciples help him to escape from them by being let down the wall in a basket. In Paul's own account, when he arrived in Damascus he preached to the gentiles, because the governor of the city attempted to have his guards arrest Paul, but the disciples help him to escape from them by being let down the wall in a basket:
2 Corinthians 11:32-33: In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me: And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.
