In Alien Runner, i'm using a GlSurfaceView in my mail.xml, too. In onCreate(..), i'm doing the complete setup-work (like shown in my example sources) each time that method is being called with the difference that i'm getting the surface view from the layout instead of creating my own. Like so:
mGLView = (GLSurfaceView) this.findViewById(R.id.surface_view);
Works fine for me so far...