I do not think there is an issue here ? the Ruby reference solution returns 1 for args_count("abc").

Tests in Ruby translation do not supply an expected value when failed.

Try it with a single for loop. Right now, you're looping through each character in input twice, effectively making the function take n^2 steps to resolve, where n is the length of input. e.g. If you do this with a string of 10,000 letters, it will take 100,000,000 steps to resolve.

As I can see, doRandomTests ignores cnt, but everything is very slow already, so I think it should be OK for now; if anything, it can be updated later.
The kata author is active, so waiting now...

updated

Missing all kinds of tests (n = 2000000 etc) that are in the original and other translations. Although some of them may not be entirely necessary for good coverage, some are, so I'd suggest that they should be just copied.
Solutions should receive copies of m or the reference solution should be called first, otherwise user's solutions can change the array.
The reference solution should at least have a random name so that it can't be called from solutions or it could be a locally bound lambda.

Hello! Can someone approve my Ruby translation or give advice on what needs changing? I think my tests might be a bit too lenient, but I'm not certain.

Alright, thanks much clearer!

Read what dulot wrote up there.

[NORTH SOUTH SOUTH EAST WEST NORTH]
[SOUTH EAST WEST NORTH]
[SOUTH NORTH]
[]

The second case doesn't comply to:

(W<->E or S<->N side by side)

Maybe this helps (written by dulot):

Think of NORTH, SOUTH, WEST, EAST as chemical products. When NORTH and SOUTH or WEST and EAST are side by side they annihilate each other; they don't if they are separated by another element.

Please explain [NORTH SOUTH SOUTH EAST WEST NORTH] => [] but [NORTH WEST SOUTH EAST] => [NORTH WEST SOUTH EAST]

They're not, please, read the instructions again, specially, the Note at the end. That exact case is explained there.

Ruby tests are broken

Case:
Expected: ["NORTH", "WEST", "SOUTH", "EAST"], instead got: []

Since N > W > S > E essentially take you in a circle if you travel the same distance each way, you'd end up at the exact same location.