for some reason, you can copy only a single path directly into path node. For instance, if you have many letters written in an AI file, if you copy them all together and paste, they will come as masks, but if you use the directly selection tool and select only one path, copy and paste that into Path node of AE layer, it will paste as a path and no masks will come. It would be a tedious task as you will have to rearrange and align your file/logo/text whatever that is.
Alternate is, which you can use, to copy and paste all together as masks, and just add a stroke from the ‘add’ menu and then add a fill.