Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson arrived in Jordan on Friday for a two-day tour where he will visit Syrian refugees being housed at a camp run by the United Nations.

An official in Carson's 2016 campaign told ABC News that the retired neurosurgeon traveled to Jordan on a "fact finding and information gathering mission." The official added that he will use the trip to meet and talk with people in the region and gain a better understanding of the refugee crisis and the foreign policy dynamics in the region.

According to The New York Times, the GOP hopeful plans to visit a camp in the northern Jordanian town of Azraq and tour a clinic and hospital.

Carson's overseas trip comes after he made several controversial comments about refugees and at at time when he is suffering from a decline in election polls.

"For instance if there's a rabid dog running around the neighborhood, probably not going to assume something good about that dog and you're going to want to put your children away," Carson said in response to an ABC News question about helping refugees.

In addition to receiving backlash for comparing Syrian refugees to rabid dogs, his foreign policy credentials have also been called into question following his comments about China's role in the Syrian crisis.

Meanwhile, recent polls show that Carson's popularity has been fading in Iowa and other early states.

A CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday showed Carson slipping below 20 percent in Iowa and to third place behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. RealClearPolitics polling average also shows that he has dropped 5 points in New Hampshire. Plus, he is trailing GOP front-runner Donald Trump in South Carolina, 19 to 35 percent, reports Politico.

Conservative voters "really want an outsider candidate, [but] they want somebody who appears presidential ... with a clear fire in the belly, and I think that's where Carson has been letting them down," Murray said, adding, "Carson is a natural fit for conservative voters, but he seems to have faded as recent national security issues highlighted some doubts conservative voters were already having about him."

Experts also note that Carson's response to the terrorist attack in Paris has also hurt him in the polls.

"For Carson, it gives him a lot of difficulty," said Andy Smith, the director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. "He's stumbled on foreign policy in general in debates, he did not focus on it as much going into the campaign, and he doesn't appear, through personality, as tough as, say, a Donald Trump is and has been on these issues."