I have a similar issue: I need to set the text of the editor on window load, on the client side.
I used
function window.onload()
{
var editor1=document.getElementById('<%=Editor1.ClientID%>');
var editdoc=editor1.GetDocument();
editdoc.body.innerHTML=unescape('some text');
}
I noticed that this method actually gets called, but something else ERASES this text afterwards. So I used window.onfocus() instead, and it works.
However, for my case, onfocus is not good enough and it doesnt fire always.