You don't need to 'edit' a group to change its entities.
So once you have an array of the newly 'grouped_faces' [made as you group them] just process it thus:
thick=1.0 ### or whatever dim desired
grouped_faces.each{|group|
group.entities.to_a.each{|e|
next unless e.is_a?(Sketchup;;Face)
e.pushpull(-thick) ### -ve pushes against face.normal
}
}