Extract a substring from a string in Ruby using a regular expression

String1.scan(/<([^>]*)>/).last.first

scan creates an array which, for each <item> in String1 contains the text between the < and the > in a one-element array (because when used with a regex containing capturing groups, scan creates an array containing the captures for each match). last gives you the last of those arrays and first then gives you the string in it.

"<name> <substring>"[/.*<([^>]*)/,1]
=> "substring"

No need to use scan, if we need only one result.
No need to use Python's match, when we have Ruby's String[regexp,#].

See: http://ruby-doc.org/core/String.html#method-i-5B-5D

Note: str[regexp, capture] → new_str or nil