I am using Ionic version 1.7.14 and the distributionUrl found in the following file. myApp/platforms/android/cordova/lib/builders/GradleBuilder.js.
I had to point the locally downloaded gradle as specified in this answer.
I had the same problem. I added gradle to my project offline.
After downloading gradle from issued link (here is http://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-2.2.1-all.zip) paste it in somewhere likes myApp\platforms\android\gradle\gradle-2.2.1-all.zip
and in build.js from myApp\platforms\android\cordova\lib\build.js
find this:
var distributionUrl="distributionUrl=http\\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-2.2.1-all.zip";
And replace it with your own file’s location:
var distributionUrl="distributionUrl=../gradle-2.2.1-all.zip";