You have said it urself...the 1st command gives u the channel impulse response (A RANDOM VARIABLE), whereas the other command resturns the DISTRIBUTION itself...i use the following code to generate the channel:
%Rayleigh fading
a = sqrt(0.5)*( randn( 1, symbols_per_frame) + j*randn( 1,
symbols_per_frame) );
% complex noise
noise = sqrt(variance)*( randn(1,symbols_per_frame) +
j*randn(1,symbols_per_frame) );
% in all
code_fade = a.*code + noise;
hope it helps