How to use $.get to populate a using a Rails query

I have some javascript that displays a list of members(links in this case) for that group.

How can I get rails to populate that list?

I can currently get a list of the members in group 45 in a browser with a html view using /groups/45

I am trying a $.get call as shown but I am not sure how to get results into a list. Presumably via xml or json but not sure how.

My view has:

  %ul#sortable
    - @members.each do |loop|
      = content_tag_for :li, loop do
        - construct_hyperlink(loop.url_address, loop.alt_text)
        = sanitize @address_url
        \- #{h @new_link_alt_text}              #{link_to 'details', link_path(loop), {"title" => loop.alt_text}}              #{link_to 'edit', edit_link_path(loop), {"title" => loop.alt_text}}

and my js has:

$(function(){
  $("a[data-show-group-members]='true'").bind('click', function() {
    var gid= $(this).data("id");
    var gname= $(this).data("name");
    var links=$.get('/groups/' + gid);
    $('<tr><td colspan="4">Members:</br><ul><li>1</li><li>2</li><li>3</li></ul>Delete the <b>'+gname+'</b> group and all its members: <b><a rel="nofollow" data-method="delete" data-confirm="Are you sure?" href=\'/groups/'+gid+'\'>Yes</a></b> <b><a href="groups" data-close-group="true">No</b></br></br>').insertAfter($(this).closest('tr'));
    $(this).html("");
  }); 
});

but I am not sure how to populate that UL (currently it has placeholder li's

My groups controller has:

  def show
    @group = Group.find(params[:id])
    @members = Link.find_all_by_group_id(params[:id], :order => 'position')
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # show.html.erb
      format.xml  { render :xml => @group }
    end
  end

so I could use the format.xml or I could add a format.json but how do I call that and output a UL that has the group names.

Group is:

id: integer, group_name: string, 
created_at: datetime, updated_at: datetime, group_description: string

After I display the members and a link to delete the group, that part works ok.

This is just about listing the members (links) of that group.

I prefer answers that avoid frameworks (other than rails and jquery) for educational purposes.