Ranged combat, is very similar to melee combat in that you engage the ability, and you begin to auto attack. The difference's of course include; Greater range (and long bows beat out short bows here as well). Also there is a minimum range, you can't be in melee range to use a bow.
Also ranged combat uses ammo (in our case usually arrows). Damage output is hideously underpowered unless you're a lvl 24 or so Ranger. At which time you see a wonderful transformation, and your DPS becomes very high hitting, and consistant.
This is due to several abilities that can be used one after another to inflict several high damage attacks. At 33 I can usually see something similar to the following.
You hit for 102 damage (regular attack)
Wounding Arrow hits for 125 damage
Triple Shot hits for 101 damage
Your poison hits for 120 pts of damage
Triple shot hits for 92 damage
Triple shot hits for 131 damage
Your poison hits for 40 pts of damage
Fiery Shot hits for 113 damage
Fiery shot hits for 104 damage
You hit for 110 damage (regular attack)
Back Shot hits for 265 damage
Hidden shot hits for 185 damage
Your poison hits for 120 damage
This is provided everything hits (which it usually does) and takes a little more than 10 seconds to pull off. All these attacks do use up quite a bit of power however. I can usually burn up about 25% of my power bar, which is ok, just make sure you have some good "drink" to get it back up.