You can run Ansible from a source code checkout (we will look at Git as a version control mechanism in Chapter 10, Working with Git): 

$ git clone https://github.com/ansible/ansible.git --recursive
$ cd ansible/
$ source ./hacking/env-setup
...
Setting up Ansible to run out of checkout...
$ ansible --version
ansible 2.7.0.dev0 (devel cde3a03b32) last updated 2018/07/11 08:39:39 (GMT -700)
  config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
...

To run different versions, we can simply use git checkout for the different branch or tag and perform the environment setup again:

$ git branch -a
$ git tag --list 
$ git checkout v2.5.6
...
HEAD is now at 0c985fe... New release v2.5.6
$ source ./hacking/env-setup
$ ansible --version
ansible 2.5.6 (detached HEAD 0c985fee8a) last updated 2018/07/11 08:48:20 (GMT -700)
  config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

Once we are at the version you need, such as Ansible 2.2, we can run the update for the core modules for that version: 

$ ansible --version
ansible 2.2.3.0 (detached HEAD f5be18f409) last updated 2018/07/14 07:40:09 (GMT -700)
...
$ git submodule update --init --recursive
Submodule 'lib/ansible/modules/core' (https://github.com/ansible/ansible-modules-core) registered for path 'lib/ansible/modules/core'

Let's take a look at the lab topology we will use in this chapter and Chapter 8, The Python Automation Framework – Beyond Basics.