We analyze the excitation dynamics numerically in a one-dimensional Rydberg atomic chain, using the methods of discrete truncated Wigner approximation (dTWA) and artificial neural networks (ANN), for both van der Waals and dipolar interactions. In particular, we look at how the number of excitations dynamically grows or evolves in the system for an initial state where all atoms are in their electronic ground state. Further, we calculate the maximum number of excitations attained at any instant and the average number of excitations. For a small system size of ten atoms, we compare the results from dTWA and ANN with that of exact numerical calculations of the Schrödinger equation. The collapse and revival dynamics in the number of Rydberg excitations are also characterized in detail. Though we find good agreement at shorter periods, both dTWA and ANN failed to capture the dynamics accurately at longer times. By increasing the number of hidden units, the accuracy of ANN has improved but suffered by numerical instabilities, especially for large interaction strengths. Finally, we look at the dynamics of a large system size of two-hundred atoms using dTWA.