re = /<a.*(\[nggallery[^\]+]*\]).*?<\/a>/
str = '<a href="[nggallery id=xx]"><span class="shutterset"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-23067" title="Image Title" src="http://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/image-title.jpg" alt="" width="685" height="456" /></span></a>
<a href="[nggallery id=xxxxx]">Click here!</a>
<a title="title title" href="[nggallery id=xxx]" target="_blank">Title Link Title Link</a>'
subst = '$1'
result = str.gsub(re, subst)
# Print the result of the substitution
puts result
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Ruby, please visit: http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.2.0/Regexp.html